He's a growing, he is....

I was a smart mother, I was. But Sonny boy is getting to be too smart for me, sigh!

You may remember that Sonny boy HAS to have a story read to him before he will/can go to sleep. It is left to the Amma to tell said story after she supervises his homework, supervises dinner, DICTATES dining by Sonny boy and then supervises shutting-the-kitchen. This after a hard/maybe not-so-hard day at work.

The Acha would have been busy all this while supervising the different programmes on tv. Ah! Very tiring work indeed, esp when sprawled out on the sofa. So the Acha promptly goes to bed after dinner if there is no more supervision needed on tv. Needless to say, he would be lolling in bed with HIS book, while Sonny boy waits for me with HIS book (When do I get to read MY book? is a pet grievance with me).

When I do crawl into bed, Sonny boy latches on with 'story, story', and bone-tired tho' I am, I do not find it in my heart to turn him away. But I am a smart (read mean) mother. I take the book in my hands, and I start to read, and I turn MULTIPLE pages, keeping to the gist of the story.
For eg, the story is about about a little farm boy who is searching for a name for his pet pussy cat and who goes around taking suggestions from his folks, and the horse, sheep, cow, hen, dog, pig, duck, fish etc etc as to what he should name her. With a page and a few lines devoted to each person/animal, it would normally take about 5 minutes to read thru the entire thing animatedly. (No compromises on the animation, no matter how tired I am, I intend Sonny boy to enjoy his books.) But when turning pages, if you turn two pages together, hey presto! you get rid of two animals and can end the story in 2 minutes. Which, once I knew I could get away with it, I did regularly. With Sonny boy being none the wiser for it. Till last week.

After the granddad, I skipped the horse and the cow to the pig, when up piped an alert voice from my shoulder,
"Amma, you forgot the horse."
"Horse? What horse? There's no horse, the little boy's asking the pig."

And I firmly went on to the pig. And went on reading.
"No Amma, there is a horse."

A little finger comes up and turns back the pages till he comes to the horse.
"There! See? You forgot the horse?" and he beamed at me in the innocent delight of having helped me 'find' the missing page.
"Ooooh! There was a horse...! I didn't see him, Sonny boy..." and I beamed back in fake delight.

A minute later, I skipped the pig and the hen to the duck.
"Amma, you forgot the pig,now."
"Pig? I did...?

Up came the finger immediately.
"See?"
"Ah, I see!"

I see, my little Sonny boy, that gone are the days of little deceptions like these. Don't grow up too soon, my son, my darling son.