Thursday, September 13, 2007

Let Us Prey

The other night, Big Daddy and I had the opportunity to attend an open house at our kids' school. Since we have three children now at the same fairly large public school, this involved quite a bit of running around. Joshua's math and science teacher was particularly chatty, which meant we had to stand around and wait while she held mini conferences with several other parents. When it was finally our turn, she wanted to tell us a cute story about something funny Joshua had said. Apparently they start each day with a morning meeting on the rug, at which time they may play a variation of a game that will only be familiar to you if you ever attended an urban elementary school. Basically everyone stands in a circle and claps out a rhythm while one person is in the center. In this case, the group chants "Hey, hey Joshua, what do you like to do? Tell us what you like to do." So my sweet little Joshua, according to his teacher, replied "I like to pray."

At first she thought he must have said "play," but upon asking him she was assured that he had, in fact, said "pray." She thought by telling me this, she was acknowledging that we were a good Christian family who had taught our children well, and that maybe we are raising a future priest or something. Imagine her surprise when, in my surprise, I said "Well, that's really funny because we are in no way a religious household." If you live outside of Memphis, you can't imagine what a shocking statement this is considered to be, but trust me when I say it was not the response she was expecting.

Later that night, I called Joshua into my room and asked him very casually about what he said he liked to do during the game in morning meeting, and he replied "I said I like to pray."

"Ok," I said, "but when do you pray?" After looking confused for a minute, he answered "Somerset." OoooK. "Somerset is a who, not a when, honey. Do you know what 'pray' means?" He nodded. "Can you tell me what it means?"

"It means eat," he said, like duh, mom. "You know, like a lion." Slowly it dawned on me that what Joshua likes to do is not pray, it's prey.

Now that's what I'm talkin' about!

5 comments:

Stephanie said...

That is hilarious.

Unknown said...

Much better that one of our kids wants to hunt down and feast on the meat of one of his siblings.

Sweet Sassy Molassy said...

It's much better that he has that kind of imagination, as opposed to that kind of lack of imagination.

Rita said...

OMG, that is hilarious. Yes, better to spend that time watching Animal Planet than in a stuffy church, lol. Seriously, you know.

Stacey Greenberg said...

are you going to tell his teacher?