knighthood

Dennis accompanied me to Uncle Denny's today, and Uncle Denny kept him well entertained while I straightened things up and did a bit of housekeeping. At first, Dennis was all over and into everything, but it didn't take him too long to settle in and enjoy his visit, and I'm glad because he's been asking me for a week to take him to see Uncle Denny. I was very amused when he told us "I'm NOT Dennis" and when we asked him who he was, he said "I'm a KNIGHT." So we asked him if he was 'Sir Dennis' and he said "yes, I am Sir Knight Dennis." He renamed Uncle Denny 'King Uncle Denny' (and who wouldn't like to be King?). I was terribly impressed when King Uncle Denny picked up his grabber tool and actually knighted Dennis!

It seems Dennis has developed a certain taste in girls. Last night in his church class, a little blonde wouldn't let go of his hand and insisted on wallowing in the corner on pillows with him. Later, I wasn't able to find him on the playground, and I would have panicked, but I saw little Olivia watching me out of the playhouse window. She would look at me and then poke her head back in and do something in the corner and then check me out again. It didn't take me long to realize that she had him trapped in the corner in the playhouse, and I had to go and rescue him (big tears on his face). She came out of the house as well, and she immediately grabbed his hand and they rushed off to play on the big structures. He wasn't free of her until her mother took her home, but he didn't seem to mind all that much other than the trapped-in-the-playhouse moment. It later occurred to me that Olivia was the class drama queen, loudly crying when we needed to use the chair she was using to prop her leg for another child to sit in, and bursting into a major tantrum when she couldn't be Line Leader for the 3rd week in a row. I reported all this to David later, and he turned to Dennis and said "Son, we need to have a talk about your taste in women! You seem to really like the strong-willed little blondes." Dennis said "Olivia wouldn't let go of my hand, Daddy, and she trapped me in the playhouse."

Bedtime is becoming more and more of an issue as of late. He doesn't want to nap or go to bed at night, and I keep catching him with his lamp lit when he is supposed to be sleeping. During naptime, he repeatedly turns on his TV and starts a DVD playing. But at night, I often catch him with his light burning, and when I open the door, there he sits, propped up on his pillows with his bible story book in hand, and he smiles and says "Hey, Mommy, I was just reading my bible stories." I just can't bring myself to discipline a child who was a bit scared of the dark so switched on his own lamp and turned to his bible for comfort. Tonight he asked me how to pray for Gran and Pop and Uncle Denny because a boy in his class last night said a prayer out loud and thanked God for a number of things (many of them twice), and Dennis was very impressed by Joshua's prayer and wanted to learn how to do it himself. I heard him talking to Jesus long after I left him and turned off the light and closed the door.