Busted by my son

So, just how smart is a 2 year 5 month old?

I tried to pull a quick one on my son, Ewan. Shelley just finished up her portion of the bedtime routine; now it is my turn to come in and read some books, tuck in, and pray. This process can take a while, but tonight I was going to try to do it in 15 minutes so that I could catch the American version of the Office on T.V.

Ewan loves books. His bedroom is pretty bare of toys, but has about thirty or so books stacked and scattered on the floor. They go to library every week and come back with about 15 new books. His favorite books are about cars, trucks, trains, construction equipment and airplanes.

We read through two books and I told him one more book. I grab Dr. Seuss’ “Hop on Pop.” I have never read it before, but it is one his favorite activities except that he calls it “jump on Dad.” I am running short on time and am about halfway through the book. It is longer than the average kid’s book. My friend Dan (who also has a boy 6 months older than Ewan) once told me that he sometimes skips pages to make the book go by faster. I skip a bunch of pages until there are four left at the end. I close the book and say the big “THE END” as I get out of his bed to turn off the lights. Ewan is not ready for the lights to go off; he is telling me to read Mr. Brown and Mr. Black. “Mr. Brown and Mr. Black, I don’t know which book that is,” I tell him as I am looking through all of his books. He crawls out of bed and grabs “Hop on Pop” and tells me to read Mr. Brown and Mr. Black. I flip through the pages and sure enough Mr. Brown and Mr. Black were in the pages I skipped. He busted me! We read through that portion twice.

Later, when I relayed this story to Shelley she said, “The kid’s smart,” and explained how she just got that book out today for the first time and read through it only once. I wish my memory was that good.