A while ago, I wrote about the “I Love You Bigger” game. My youngest child Luke (age 5) and I play the game every now and then. I begin by saying, “I love you bigger than a tree,” and he would replies with something like, “I love you bigger than a house.” Throughout the game I try to choose larger and larger objects, although he often just chooses whatever comes to mind first.

The other night, while we were snuggling on the couch watching television, Luke started our game again. I was surprised, because we hadn’t played it for a while.

“Mom, I love you more than….” He paused. “….more than …vegetables!”

Now, I know Luke does not like vegetables, and I wondered just where this was going. So I said, “I love you more than…kitty litter.”

Luke smiled and thought for a moment. “I love you more than garbage.”

“Ooooo,” I said. “That’s a tough one to beat. I love you more than a squished bug.”

“Oooo,” he repeated. “Well, I love you more than… blood on a dead bird.” Okay, now I’m beginning to wonder what he and his sisters have been looking at outside.

“That’s gross!” I exclaimed. “I love you more than… a dried up worm.”

Luke was quiet for just a minute. “Well, I love you more than a dead fox.”  I wasn’t sure why we were focusing on road kill, but he soon came back with another one. “And I love you more than a giant beetle.”

I took that one. “I’m so glad!” I said as we laughed, and we went back to watching the show.

Then he laughed again. “Now you can put that on Facebook!” he said.

“You’re right!” I answered. Ah well — my little boy is growing up!

“Please, Mom, please?” they asked. “Tabitha and Rebecca really want to come over. They can spend the whole day. Please, Mom?”

Not quite what I had planned, but it seemed like a good idea – IF they would include their little brother.

“We will!” they assured me, so I agreed.

The friends came over, and the girls did include Luke in their activities. They worked on the playhouse, took a walk through the woods, and looked for worms. When it was time to take the friends home, they gathered up their things, including a cup with a couple of worms.

Yesterday afternoon, one of my daughters went searching for worms again. After a while she came inside, disappointed.

“Where do you look for worms?” she asked. “I haven’t been able to find any.”

We went outside together and started digging in our little garden area. “I bet if we start weeding this spot, we’ll find some,” I told her. And we did. Tiny ones, big ones, fat ones, skinny ones – she had a new cupful of worms.

I went back inside, and she came in about thirty minutes later. “I dumped out my worms,” she said.

“We just found them,” I replied. “Why’d you dump them out?”

“I shouldn’t like worms. They’re slimy and icky.”

“You can like worms if you want to,” I told her. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t. Some people have jobs working with worms. Some scientists like to study worms.”

I wondered, though, where she had gotten that idea – not from her friends, because they played with the worms too. Perhaps from something she’d seen in a movie? Perhaps from other acquaintances?

With homeschooling, I try to keep my children from that kind of thinking as long as possible – from believing they have to think a certain way, just because that’s how others see it. But while it was a little sad to me that she wasn’t being true to herself, her comment did open up a great opportunity to talk about peer pressure.

I hope she goes searching for worms again today.