Nary an Original Thought

A few gems from Pete as of late…

In AWANA Cubbies, Pete just memorized John 14:2. The “activity” to go along with this was a coloring page showing clouds, starbursts, some more clouds, and some more sun-looking things. Pete colored the starbursts yellow, the sky-looking area blue, and the rest green. He told his mom that the picture looked like it was supposed to be a bunch of clouds and stuff, but he thought it made sense to color a lot of it green because “there will probably be a lot of land in heaven, not just clouds and stuff.” I suppose he’s right.

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While we were in St. Louis the kids spent a fair amount of time “swimming” in my in-laws’ hot tub. At one point Elsie noticed that her scraped knee was “all better”. I said she should probably take a second to thank Jesus for healing her knee, and instinctively I looked up toward the sky as I thanked him myself. She asked why I looked up toward the sky, to which I replied that sometimes when we pray we can look up toward the sky to remember that Jesus is in heaven. She thought a minute and then said, “Alaina’s in heaven too, right?”:”(My cousin accidentally shot and killed his wife, Alaina, a few weeks ago. The kids are still trying to understand it all, as am I. More about this here.)”: Before I could get an answer out, Peter chimed in. “Yes, Elsie. Alaina is in heaven. When people who love Jesus die they go to heaven. And then, when Jesus is done fixing the earth, we will all come back to live with him on it again.” Looks like our little post-mil’er in training is well on his way.

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So, in light of what happened with my cousin, we’ve been doing a little bit of gun safety talking these days. I asked Pete if he was allowed to touch a gun. “Nope. Never.” Then I asked him if he would just stand back and watch if he ever saw one of his sisters playing with a gun. “No way,” he said, “because that would be just like what Adam did when the snake talked to Eve.” Yes. Good point. Wouldn’t want to repeat that little mistake.

One of the supreme joys in my life is “snuggling” in bed with all of my kids first thing in the morning. Tess usually wakes us all up, and then everyone piles in while Tess works on the first bottle of the day.

Several days ago, I said something about how amazed I am at the softness of Tess’ skin. She’s about 11 mos. old now, but she still has the softest baby skin I’ve ever seen. Pete is never one to miss an opportunity for commentary, so he remarked that girls all have soft skin.

But not boys. Boys are bumpy.

If you caught Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, then you probably still have the A Man’s Gotta Do song stuck in your head (if not, you can buy it from iTunes or hear the song on youtube).

You can nominate me for Father of the Year if you want, but we watched all three acts of Dr. Horrible with Pete over the weekend. He thought it was pretty entertaining, and stayed engaged through all 45~ minutes. Then, yesterday I caught him singing “A maaaaaaaaaan’s gotta do what a maaaaan’s gotta do” under his breath. As if that weren’t funny enough, last night while he was taking a bath he turned to me and said, “I’ve gotta do what I’ve gotta do. ‘Cuz I’m a man, right Dad?” As I tried to keep myself from bursting out with laughter, I asked him what he thought he had to do. “You know,” he said, “Man stuff.”

I’m hoping that doesn’t involve peeing in the back yard, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Context: In the bathroom after viewing Prince Caspian last week…

Rachel (Amanda’s 9 yr. old sister): So, was the White Witch really going to help them?

Peter (my 4 1/2 yr. old son): Aunt Rachel… did you even see the first movie? The White Witch put Edmond in a cage, AND she killed Aslan, but he got alive again. No, she wasn’t really going to help them.

During Pete’s “routine checkup”

Dr. Webb: Can Peter count to four?

Amanda: Um, yes.

Dr. Webb: Peter, how high can you count?

Pete: I dunno. Twenty seven? Twenty nine? I’m workin’ on my thirties.

Daddy: Peter, do you know what today is?

Pete: Is it Sunday?

D: Did we go to church this morning?

P: Nope.

D: Then I guess it isn’t Sunday.

P: Well, I have Cubbies tonight. Does that help you?

The Setting: During Day 1 of Amanda’s trip to St. Louis:

Me: Uh, Pete. Why don’t you have any pants on?

Peter: Because I’m taking my second pair of underwear off.

Me: OK. Why did you have two pairs of underwear on?

Peter: I thought it would be cool, but… it wasn’t.

Me: Fair enough.

Don’t worry. She’ll be back Sunday night.

Pete and I have this game we play where we take turns coming up with hypothetical confrontations between various animals, super heroes, and historical figures. It usually goes something like this…

Pete: Who would win in a fight between a snake and a, um, a SHARK?
Me: Man, that’s a tough one but I think the shark would win because of its huge mouth with all of those big, huge teeth.
Pete: Yeah, you’re probably right, but snakes are pretty tough, too.

Since it’s been so bloomin’ hot lately, we’ve all been sleeping together in the guest room in the basement. Aside from the blessedly cool temperature, another added benefit has been getting to talk to Pete while we all fall asleep.

Last night, after about 45 consecutive seconds of silence (that in itself is noteworthy), I heard Pete’s little voice from his bed on the other side of the room. “Who would win in a fight,” he asked, “between Jesus and a whale?” I immediately answered that Jesus, the Son of God, would easily win in a fight with a whale because he’s JESUS! Pete agreed, adding that “Jesus could *punch* the whale right in the face and it would probably go away.”

Can’t argue with that logic.