Nathan is becoming such a riot. He keeps me on my toes – whether because he’s being entertaining or because he’s getting into trouble. This morning I walked in and found one of his matchbox cars in the toilet and Nathan told me it’s because he was “a bad guy” and he jumped in there.

Right.

A few things he’s saying lately:

“Buppin” instead of button. I LOVE this one. I make him tell me something about “buppins” all day long. Can’t get enough of his little voice.

He’s very into knock-knock jokes. Jon taught him, “Knock-knock, who’s there? Hutch. Hutch who? Bless you!” so now he thinks “bless you” is the punchline to every joke. A recent example: “Knock-knock, Mom.” “Who’s there?” “Applesauce.” “Applesauce who?” “BLESS YOU! HA! HA! HA! That’s a funny joke! I just kidding, Mama. I just kidding.”

Another favorite: “Excuse me, stop talking, Mom, I have sumpin to say.”

“Here’s the deal” has become quite popular. Today, I was attempting to start on the huge, several week project that is organizing our garage and Nathan said, “Here’s the deal, Mama. I have a lot to do today so I need to ride my bike and I need to play wif my cars and I have to go to Chick-fur-way.”

We made another batch of doughnut muffins and Nathan was eating his and starting laughing hysterically, held it up and said, “Look, Mama! My muffin is wearing a hap!” (aka hat)

We met our friends Jamie, Joel and Julia at Chick-fil-a and I watched as a kid shoved Nathan in the play area and Nathan just walked away. I was SO PROUD. So on the way home, I said, “I am so proud of you, honey. You didn’t push him back. The Bible says, ‘do not return wrong for wrong’ and you didn’t push him back when he pushed you and that was very good.” Nathan said, “So I don’t push someone back?” I said, “That’s right, Nathan. We don’t push anyone. We are sweet and kind.” He thought about that for a minute and then said, “What if we are playing football?”

Sometimes I worry that God has given me a child who is way smarter than I ever will be. Junior high is shaping up to be very interesting.