"Do we have any more Pull-Ups?" he called down the hall to me.
"No," I answered from George's room, where I was dressing the baby in his pajamas.
"Well, what should I put him in for bed?" Joe asked.
"Just put him in underwear," I replied, "he's been waking up dry most nights for weeks now."
"I just let him have three glasses of iced tea!" Joe said.
Don't worry, folks, we drink decaf iced tea. But seriously--whaaaa?....
"Ummmm, just put him in one of George's diapers, I guess," I told Joe.
Joe attempted to put Luke in George's size four diaper, but Luke put up a fight. "I'm SCARED of diapers," he wailed, with the saddest look ever on his face.
After we went round and round discussing in vain how silly it is to be scared of diapers, we put the boy in underwear and prepared for a flood. Around 8:30 that evening, my brother, Matt, drove in from out of town for a weekend visit, right as Luke was getting out of bed for the umpteenth time.
Let me back up and describe the uncle that Matt is. Matt met Luke when he was ten days old and having some tummy problems. He was sick and cranky and that very day had gone on some prescription formula for a few days while I rid my system of dairy. Matt had never held a baby before, but he came into our home, scooped Luke up, and fed him a bottle. He was as nurturing as a twenty-four-year-old man could possibly be to a newborn baby, and Luke really took to him. Ever since, they've had a great relationship. They've enjoyed many phone conversations, and Matt has given him some of his favorite presents. He even made him a three-dimensional birthday cake in the shape of a schoolbus when he turned two. A while back, while we were on a walk, Luke burst into giggles completely out of the blue and shouted, "That Uncle Matt is so silly!" So, when Matt said to me, "Let me go up and put him back to bed," it sounded great to me.
If you heard a primal scream coming from the direction of Mississippi on Friday night around 8:30, it was Luke, petrified of his uncle. I picked Luke up, or maybe he scrambled up my body, I can't remember which, but he screamed and cried, "Uncle Matt is SCARY! I'm SCARED of Uncle Matt!" After a minute or two, Matt gave up and went downstairs, defeated.
Imagine my surprise on Sunday, when Luke emerged from his Sunday School classroom with the following arts and crafts project hanging from his neck:
I was really excited to see if this medal was going to give him some supernatural strength of biblical proportions, à la Sampson's hair. Maybe Luke was a changed boy. Maybe he didn't have to be scared of diapers and funny uncles anymore.
Last night I got my answer. I served the kids red beans and rice for dinner. You guessed it. Luke was SCARED of it.
The funny part is that Luke reminds me of Uncle Matt and his own "bravery" when he was little.
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