Bedtime Story #26: The Boy Who Wanted to Be Perfect

Mommy: Once there was a boy named Tared who was very smart about a lot of things. He was smart about lions, and he was smart about snakes--
Jared: Yes! And he was smart about T-Rexes too--
Jonah: Jared! Mommy is telling you a story! You're not supposed to interrupt.
Mommy: Tared also had an older brother named Nonah who was pretty bossy and always telling him what to do.
Yes, Tared was very smart about T-Rexes and every other kind of dinosaur. He was pretty smart about swimming, but not as smart as Sam. But the thing Tared was really smart about was drawing.
Tared loved to draw. He drew animals, mostly. Like lions...


and cats...


and skunks...


One day, Tared decided to draw a picture of a rocket ship. It was so cool! It had wings that looked like a bird's wings and it had lots of room for the astronauts. It had paintings of fire on the ends that looked almost real. But it was just paint. Anyway, Tared showed his picture of the rocket to his uncle who was an engineer, and his uncle showed it to the guys he worked with, and they thought it was so cool, they decided to build a real rocket just like it.


So next, Tared drew a picture of a car that had doors that opened like wings, and it could go faster than any other car in the world because it had seventeen wheels. Tared showed it to his aunt, who was also an engineer, and she took it to work, and the people there liked it so much they built a real car just like it.
Tared was starting to get pretty excited about his drawings, so one day he decided to draw a new playground for his preschool. It had 7,145 slides and lots of things to climb on and jump on. It even had a tunnel made out of cotton candy. Tared was pretty excited about it, and he was sure that when he showed it to his teacher, she would decide the school needed a new playground just like it. But then something terrible happened!
Tared made a mistake.
Tared hated to make mistakes.
Tared got so mad, he threw his pencil across the room, and the pencil became like a dart in its flight and it stuck right into the TV. The TV made a sound like this: pfftt and then smoke started to come out of the hole.
But Tared wasn't done being mad.
Next, Tared threw his notebook up in the air and it hit the fan. The fan was on, and the blades turned Tared's notebook into something that looked like snow.
But Tared still wasn't done being mad.
When Tared was really mad, he started to hurt himself. He hit his head with his hand a LOT of times, and his face started to get red and hurt a little bit.
That's when Tared's mommy came upstairs.
"Tared," she said, "what are you doing?"
"I messed up my drawing," he said, hitting himself in the face.
"I thought that might be what happened," she said, catching his hand and holding it tightly. "I heard the pfftt sound, but I thought maybe you had tooted. Then I saw something like snow coming down the stairs, but I thought that was just from Daddy working on the roof. But then I heard the smacking, and I started to get worried."
Tared started crying. "I just want to make a good picture of a playground, and it's not working out!"
"Well, you know," Mommy said, "there's only one person in the world who is perfect. Do you know who that is?"
"Me?" Tared asked.
"No, honey, it's God. He's the only one who doesn't make mistakes. Everyone else does. I make mistakes, and so does Daddy. Nonah makes lots of mistakes. So if you make a mistake, you should just erase the bad part and keep going. Or you could just start a new drawing."
Tared looked like he didn't believe her.
"It's true, honey. And remember, you're a great artist! You make things so real they seem like they are alive!"
Tared started to nod slowly. "I am a good artist," he admitted.
"That's right, little frog. Remember how well you drew me? Now, it's time to go to sleep."
And mommy helped Tared get ready for bed. When she bent to kiss him good night, she crinkled a little, and when she turned to go out the door, Tared couldn't see her for a split second.
That's because she was paper. THE END.

Jonah: WHAT??!!?? That's the end! That's horrible! You can't make her out of paper. You should stop the story after the mom tells Tared he's a good artist.
But Jared didn't say anything. He was asleep.