Dad's Funny About Poetry

(photo borrowed from here.)

We've been having our poetry recitations on Tuesday evenings. 

In theory they're supposed to be in the afternoons, but that hasn't worked, and the evenings have, so we're sticking with what works.

Dad has worked the past several Tuesday nights, so he'd never seen one before.   But he was home last night.  After H5 proudly climbed onto the hearth and recited her poem word perfectly, I saw Dad pull a poetry book off the shelf and sneak into the kitchen.

A7 had her turn.

Suddenly Dad jumped onto the hearth.

We all cracked up because he looked so huge standing there with his head almost in the ceiling, and he proceeded to recite dramatically:

"I eat my peas with honey.
I've done so all my life.
It makes the peas taste funny.
But . . . something . . . something . . . something . . . KNIFE!"

We howled with laughter.

He stepped down acting comically chagrined while the rest of us, in unison, recited the poem correctly.  
I asked the kids if I should give him a treat just for trying.  They were willing to be merciful, but Dad refused such charity and put his nose back in the poetry book.

The rest of the kids took their turns, but between them Dad kept jumping up to recite poems.

He did a better job in these later efforts.  He ended up with 2 treats (they were bite sized)!

And we all got to laugh until I had to warn everyone not to wake up I2.

Dad should be home on our next poetry night.  We can hardly wait.