My Favorite Little Bookworm

On Facebook a few months back, a college friend commented that Irish hubby and I were raising nerds after Little Man, upon seeing the snow on the ground in early October, said, "We're on Hoth." As in, the frozen planet that Luke and Co. travel to in Star Wars.

I have to say that I'm kind of proud to be raising nerds. Nerds that like cool music and have great senses of humor. Nerds that love Jesus, their mom and books. In that order!

To bear witness to the nerd-dom we are creating in our little Irish Norwegian family, I present exhibit A.

It's a normal Tuesday afternoon at our house. I pick up Littlest Man at preschool with Little Miss Pink in tow. We head to the prep academy that Little Man attends to pick him up from half day kindergarten. We get there early, so Littlest Man and Little Miss Pink look at books (and I do, too) in the car.

Little Man and his classmates file out of the building, waiting to get escorted to their awaiting minivans. Little Man's adorable teacher (who reminds us all of Giselle from "Enchanted") holds his hand and walks him to the car. Normally, she says hello and goodbye and is on her way to deposit another kindergartner in his or her vehicle.

Not today. Today, she looks at me with a rather serious face and says she had to have a chat with Little Man. Uh-oh. You have to know that Little Man, like his mother, is incredibly obedient and rule conscious when it comes to other people (at home, not so much always!) and school, church, etc. I remember the very few times I got in trouble in elementary school. Vividly. I digress.

My stomach dropped when she said those words because, as I said, I'm a rule follower, too! She proceeded to tell me that, upon arrival at school, Little Man and a classmate stopped at the book fair that was being held in the school atrium. They did not continue onto class, though. They stopped for many minutes. Little Man was reading and reading, until another adult stopped him to ask, "Where are you supposed to be, boys?" His teacher told me that Little Man was actually late for class because of his little Book Fair visit. She let me know she'd talked to him about this behavior and he understood he couldn't do it again.

So, Little Man's first run in with the law at school was as a result of his inability to hold back the urge to check out all the new books. Like an escapee from Fat Camp at the candy store. My Little Man.

We had a chat about it that night at bedtime. Little Man told me that when the adult "caught" him, he felt like his heart was just racing. We talked about being obedient and making good choices. Then he said, "My heart is beating a lot again." I asked him why. He said, "I wonder how am I going to walk by all of those books without stopping again tomorrow?"

Priceless.