It Means What Time It Is

I think I read somewhere that children ought to be quiet before bedtime. There should be dim lighting, and quiet reading or relaxed, hushed talking. Under no circumstances should you get a small child riled up before they are tucked in for the night. 

This is probably very good advice. However, the person who wrote these rules never met Lucas Cole Voigt. This little boy loves to laugh before bedtime. He gets silly and we go through a whole production that, many a night, finds both of us belly-laughing with tears in our eyes. 

Last night was no exception.  Lucas takes great joy in placing his large action-figure Spiderman on the carpet, and then pushing me down on top of it so that I injure myself on Spidey. We do this *every* night, without fail. 

Then, once he's in bed, he asks me to fall into his bed. So I walk to the far corner of his room and pretend to walk or skip around until I *accidentally* trip and fall into his bed, hitting against the wood and plunging to the ground where I lay in horrific pain. Then there is laughing for days. The funny thing is that sometimes it really does hurt me a little and I don't have to act so much. (Hey, I am in my early thirties here.)

Then we pray and say goodnight and I'm shutting the door behind me. 

You would think this would have a little boy completely wide awake and bouncing around his bed. But usually, there's not another peep from his room. 

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One day, sitting at the table, Lucas paid me a compliment. "This is a good lunch. You're the best cooker ever."

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Our morning routine lately is to watch music videos before it's time for breakfast and getting ready. Lucas grew accustomed to this quickly and as I sat him on the couch one morning, he instructed me what to put on.  "I want to watch God's Not Dead. Because I love God's Not Dead."

That's Lucas' explanation for pretty much everything he does--because he loves it. 

After dinner, Lucas asks for a peanut butter spoon. "Because I love peanut butter spoons."

After nap, Lucas wants to lay on the couch with his feet on a pillow. "Because I love laying like this."

After knocking over the complicated Lego creation his big brothers made and hearing their cries of frustration, Lucas explains to me why it happened. "Because I love knocking stuff down."

Lucas will also say random, non-sensical things and when asked what it means, he replies, "it means what time it is."

And his explanation is *always* that it means what time it is. 

This is one of Lucas' 3 year old pictures we took at a little park in Rockne. He was in rare form that day, smiling brilliantly for EVERY picture.

Lucas and his best buddy, the bald eagle.

At school.

With his brother from another mother, Preston. These two are inseparable at school. And it is so cute I could simply melt.