Songs you know by heart

My mom's accused me on more than one occasion of winding Mark up before bed. Although I'd like to deny it, it's true.

I don't mean to rile him up. We start out very calmly, reading bedtime stories together on my bed. It's my very favorite time of day, our cuddle time. Mark looks so cute and innocent, all into his Calvin & Hobbes stories. But sooner or later, something triggers my silly button, and we toss sweet tranquility out the window.

Last night was just such a night. We read about poor Calvin, paper-thin, having morphed into a two-dimensional character. He was blowing aimlessly in the breeze.

"You know who he looks like?" Mark asked.

"Yup," I answered, and then burst into my favorite Flat Stanley song. (Yes, there really is such a thing -- we saw a musical about Flat Stanley, and the best thing about it was this song, which drives Mark insane because it gets stuck in his head and he can't get it out.)

"Where in the world would you go to
If you could really go to
Anywhere in the world!"

But rather than smile or applaud, my under-appreciative audience wailed in protest, "No, Mom, DON'T!"

Which of course translated to "Sing it again!" in my head. So I did.

I was cracking up, really enjoying myself, when the little rat pulled out the big guns.

"Mini sirloin burgers..." he sang, and I immediately rolled away, hands plastered to my ears.

"No!" I screamed. "Not that song! You know I can't get that song out of my head once I hear it!"

To which he smiled and repeated, "Mini sirloin burgers -- HA!"

It was like fingernails scratching on the blackboard. I could already hear the soundtrack in my head, stuck on an infinite loop, and knew I'd spend the rest of my night humming about mini sirloin burgers (against my will).

"Where in the world would you go to --" I started.

"Mini sirloin bur -- " he sang back.

"If you could really go to..."

"-- gers -- HA!"

"OK, OK, truce!" I pleaded. He smiled triumphantly, and curled back into the pillows.

He started back on the story, "And then Calvin said --"

"Anywhere in the world!" I whispered.

And was promptly smacked in the head with a pillow.

So much for providing a calm, relaxing wind-down time before bed at my house.

Creative reading

I am proud to say that Mark is a chip off the ol' block when it comes to reading. He loves it, and I encourage it by providing him with a stocked bookcase and easy access to the library.

I also encourage it for another purely selfish reason. Story time is my very favorite part of the day -- when we cuddle up on my bed, read to each other, and wind down from our busy days, together.

Mark is a great reader. However, when he's really tired, his mouth trips a bit, and he skips lazily over whole sentences. I usually take over at the point, because I know he's tired and ready for bed. But last night his errors were so funny, I let him read a good three or four pages before I took my turn.

He'd picked out a book called Star Wars: Epic Battles. Since Star Wars has a language all its own, I knew I was in for some interesting interpretations.

"Star Wars: Eric Battles," he started.

"Epic Battles, not Eric," I corrected.

"What's epic mean?" he asked.

"Really big."

"Oh." He started the story. "Each planet, large or small, made its voice heard in a huge Senate building on the capital planet, Croissant --"

"Coruscant," I interrupted.

"Coruscant," he echoed. "As the conflict grew, the Republic later deployed its own army." He stopped abruptly and said, "That's messed up! They destroyed their own army?!"

"Deployed," I corrected. "It meant they sent the army out to battle. They didn't kill the army."

"Ohhhh," he said, nodding. He continued for a while, until he came to this: "Sith Lords often hire assistants, spies and bounty hunters to do their dirty work for them."

"That's assassins," I noted. "Sometimes assistants have to do dirty work, too, but not usually killing people."

He moved on to a sidebar about battle droids. "The Trade Federation built many million machine-shoulders called battle droids," he read.

"Machine-soldiers," I corrected. "I think only the Six Million Dollar Man had a machine shoulder."

"Who?" Mark asked, and I reminded myself not to reference '70s TV shows around a 9-year-old.

He gave it a good effort, but eventually started yawning after every other sentence. As amusing as it was, I took over the story. And faithfully read the words correctly, as they appeared on the pages.

Personally, I think the story suffered because of it. I definitely preferred Mark's version better!