Sunday, August 01, 2010

an actual moment, because i don't want to forget. subtitled: the dangers of reading the Bible to your boys

Picture the scene: Brian is ironing his shirt for church, I am standing in a towel wondering if it would be better to look like a tent, or to stretch one last pre-maternity shirt over my in-between pregnant self, and in walks Asher and Silas. Asher is holding a hackey sack - left over from Brian's juggling days (yes, actual juggling. He was once a semi-professional juggler. How FUN is that?), and he - in front of us, with full knowledge of his audience - walks up to his brother, shrieks "WHIIZZZ!" and beans Silas in the forehead.

Silas melts, predictably. I attend to him while Brian says, "Asher, you need to sit in the hallway. You're in time-out."

"But Dad ...?"

"No, Asher. Go to time out."

Asher sits obligingly just outside of our door. Silas forgets about the transgression and moves on. A minute later, Asher says, "But Dad, I was just trying to whiz him!" He says it with such conviction that Brian and I stand and look at one another for a minute, wondering what he could possibly be talking about.

It was Brian who got it first. "Come here, Buddy." Asher pads back into the room.

"Were you trying to whiz the ball into his head, like David did with Goliath?"

Asher nodded emphatically. "Mm-hmm. He PICKED up a rock, and it went WHIZZ! and he got Goliath!"

Brian said, "But Asher, do you remember what happened to Goliath?"

"He died."

"Right. And you don't really want to kill anybody do you? You couldn't really kill your brother with the bean bag, but you could hurt him. You don't really want him to be hurt, right?"

Asher shook his head passionately.

"Well, let's don't play 'whiz' then. It doesn't sound like a safe game."

"Okay, Dad," Asher said. Paused, then said, "But Dad, if we meet a REAL Goliath, can I use a REAL rock and whiz him?!"

"Yes, Buddy," I answered with a smile. "If you ever meet a real Goliath, it's okay to 'whiz' him."

Asher smiled triumphantly and turned to leave the room.

"But Asher?" Brian said. Asher turned and walked back in.

"Yes, Dad?"

"If you THINK you see a real Goliath, you need to check with Mama or Daddy and confirm that it's a giant before you whiz him. Got it?"

"Got it."

I love that boy.

4 comments:

ljkgates said...

Oh my goodness!

Jenia said...

Wow! This made my day :)

Rachel said...

hilarious! got me laughing out loud!

aubrey said...

too precious! i love your boys!