Thursday, July 8, 2010

Lars Is Up to Mischief at Midnight!

It's after midnight, and Lars is up to something.  His bedroom is directly above my office, and I hear him thumping and bumping around up there.  Probably has some kind of extremely odd light source hidden under his covers so he can read -- and I know it's going to be a weird light source because I've already confiscated all of the ordinary things such as flashlights and head lamps (oh yes!).  The last time I caught him reading under the covers, he had his digital camera and he was using the light from the preview screen to read.  The time before that, it was a science invention kit my sister (Susan, not Janice the Manice) had given him, and he'd built himself some kind of a lamp.

I've been hearing his tell-tale thumps and bumps intermittently for over an hour now, but I haven't gone up and busted him.  Why not?  Well, it's the summer, for one thing, and he doesn't have camp this week so it's not the end of the world if he sleeps in a little.  Plus, it's kind of cute.  He has no idea I'm letting him get away with it.  In a few minutes I'll head upstairs, and I'll take away his book and whatever contraption is illuminating it, but for now I'll let him be a 9-year-old boy reading a good book under the covers on a hot summer night.

I can't believe my little Lars is 9 1/2 already!  Wasn't he a bald little 2-year-old just the other day?


I thought he looked like a miniature Fraser Crane at that stage, with the little wispy curls around the sides and back, and a shiny little bald dome on top.


...and now here he is, about a month ago, programming his Lego Mindstorm robot on his laptop.  To all of you mommies out there whose babies are still small, enjoy every minute of it and take lots of pictures!  It goes by in a blur, like a train speeding away from the station. 

Okay, 12:30 AM is late enough for a rising 4th grader to be awake, don't you think?  Time to go enforce the law of bed time!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cute post, Rebecca. At least Lars likes to read... :)

Re: silk batt - I think you will really like it!

Fred and/or Marlies said...

Oh how I remember, just like it was yesterday, when I read Quo Vadis under the covers using a flashlight but that was 60 some years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quo_Vadis_(novel)

Historical adventures and science fiction were my main diet for books. I had to borrow them from our little town library but could only have them for a week or two. Since my dad always wanted me to be doing something more useful, I had to read wherever I could. Between playing and reading there wasn't much time left to work in the garden or whatever chores I was assigned. I had my priorities. Strange how genes continue the sequence of events. Lars' father never did do the reading thing but he sure liked to go off and play and ignore chores. Lars seems to have the full set of grandfatherly genes again. My advice, of course, would be to not limit the reading as long as there is adequate playtime for bodily excercise in the stream. Sleep will take care of itself with enough running around.

Come to think of it, with both mom and grandfather having studied history because they loved to read, Lars may have a double barrel of the disease. What will ever become of him?