name dropping
I've been trying to set aside the first half-hour after breakfast for reading spiritual books with Harvey, as if I were running a real homeschool and trying to accomplish more with the day than just loading and unloading the dishwasher at infinitum. Harvey has taken very well to our little table of Christian books, especially his child's bible which we've already read through twice this week, all 200 illustrated pages. This morning I had just finished reading about the patriarchs when I put the book down and asked Harvey if he was ready to vacuum. He didn't budge.
"More Je-SUS?" Harvey said.
"Look Harvey," I said, "I'm happy to read more about Jesus, but if you're going to stress only one syllable you need to put the emphasis on the first one, otherwise the evangelicals won't know what you're talking about."
So we read through the story of Jesus, starting when he was 12 (I skipped the 10 pages on Christmas, since I had just read it yesterday) through the crucifixion. Harvey likes the page where Jesus sits on a rock and delivers the sermon on the mount ("Harvey sit rock one day?") as well as the transfiguration ("Harvey up mountain one day?"). Since "one day" is Harvey's favorite expression du jour, we end up having a conversation every page about what we'll do one day and when specifically. We can sit on a rock as soon as the snow melts but we'll have to wait till July to go up a mountain. Anyway...
Harvey has a tendency to take any line of text he understands and repeat it with a more familiar subject, so it shouldn't have surprised me when I read to him that Pilate let the soldiers kill Jesus and Harvey peeped up:
"Mama kill Je-SUS?"
"Um... er.... Yes Harvey, mama killed Jesus. He died for my sins."
"Dada kill Je-SUS?"
"Yes, dada killed Jesus too. We all did."
"Harvey kill Je-SUS?"
"Yes sweetness, you killed Jesus too. You see, he died so all your sins could be forgiven."
"Rascal kill Je-SUS?"
"Well, it's theologically unclear. But no, I don't think that Rascal killed Jesus."
Harvey seemed content with that explanation until we got to the page summarizing the book of Revelation and Harvey repeated "Je-SUS coming one day?" I tried to unexcite him a bit by explaining that all the world first needs to be saved, but I think that was introducing too many new concepts at once since he just kept repeating "One day?"
So it's good to see him taking an interest in his adorably impressionable 21-month way. No pressure on me to get things right or anything...
We finished reading the book and headed off to clean when Harvey demanded, "More song Soul Coughing?" Okay, so we'll listen to Soul Coughing while we vacuum. I'm not the only one in this house who's working on stuff with Harvey, apparently. The 90s punk is all Dan's doing.