This Kid Is A Storyteller

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n every family with multiple kids, there has to be at least one. You know who I am talking about. The one that craves the attention. The one that can look mom straight in the eyes and tell a fib. The boy who cried wolf. The one that’s a storyteller.

We certainly have one of those. In our family, the storyteller is Gideon. He is seven years old, has super cute dimples and also has practically zero impulse control. Let’s just say, he’s a hot mess and a work in progress. He challenges us daily as parents and frankly, sometimes we just want to dropkick the kid. He really should come with a warning label and this was never more clear than a few weeks back, after dropping him off at Sunday School. You see, we should have warned the teacher of his stories and his uncanny ability to make you believe every word that comes out of his mouth. But we didn’t, and the results were hilarious.

I was waiting in the crowded hallway outside the kids’ classrooms. waiting for Andi to pick up the boys. Out she comes, laughing while Gideon is following close behind with a sheepish look on face. I thought nothing of it since that is pretty much his default face when we are out in public. Then come his teachers and they  looked at me and said, “Oh, you are looking good for someone who died two days ago.” Um. Thanks?

What in the world did they mean by that? Well, apparently our storyteller wove a real doozy for them. At the end of class, they asked the kids if they had anything that they needed to be prayed for and when nobody spoke up, Gideon raised his hand. He proceeds to tell them that his dad had died two days earlier of cancer and that he would appreciate their prayers. So, being good Sunday School teachers and also good human beings, they surrounded him with the other kids and they all prayed for him in his time of great loss. Fortunately for him, dad was standing right outside in the hallway, waiting for him to come out of class.

As was said so eloquently in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, “I’m not dead yet.” This was definitely a story to remember but it was just one of many from our storyteller.