One Sunday Afternoon...

It was Sunday afternoon. The Hansens were in town, and the Mikkelsons were over. We had just finished our homemade strawberry ice cream, and were lounging around the family room wishing we had room for more. 

I wandered away, looking for Wyatt. I was the bearer of the worst kind of news: bedtime.

I found him in the living room sitting on the floor surrounded with trains and tracks, reading a book with his cousin Hadley. 

Hadley is the youngest Mikkelson girl, and she has a way with kids. Wyatt adores her, and Hadley always finds time for him. I often threaten Shawn and Rischelle that I'm going to keep Hadley at our house so that I have constant access to her amazing playing-with-my-kids skills. They just laugh. I think they think I'm kidding!

I broke the news to him, and after some wrestling of wills, some broken-hearted complaints, and finally, some hugs and kisses all around, we headed down the stairs.

Wy and I were chatting while I got him dressed for bed, and out of the blue, he says: 

"And then he was running naked in the road!"

Not sure I heard him correctly (I've never heard him say "naked", let alone "naked in the road"), I made him repeat himself three times.

He assured me that yes, 'he' was in fact running naked down the road. 

I tried not to laugh hysterically - wondering who in the world this 'he' might be - and why he was streaking through my boy's imagination.

It was when I was back upstairs, cleaning up the trains mess in the living room that I saw the book that Hadley had been reading him.

from David Shannon's "No, David!"