Guthrie is not a word

He's a cute kid. Smart kid. Loving, sweet, great kid.

But he's about to drive me bonkers.

It's the same thing, every night, when we're reading.

I'll be going along, reading his bedtime stories (all 5 thousand of them), when I have to look over to see how Turner is doing if he's not yet asleep, or look at Guthrie to see his reaction, or ... whatever. You know, you can read a sentence and then reading it out loud takes longer, and so you look around while you're reading? Yeah. But then Guthrie's reaction, if I'm looking at him:

"I'm not a word."

Looking at Turner: "Turner's not a word."

Or sometimes he quotes the exact words: "Turner is not the Ugly Duckling." (See, he could be telling me Turner is the ugly duckling, so it could be worse.)

"The clock is not the big, big bridge."

You get the picture.

At first it was kind of cute. And it's a good sign of pre-reading skills, too, I think, on at least some level.

But it makes reading time rather difficult for me, and I want to pull my hair out. Sometimes Turner takes off crawling, and Guthrie is constantly giving me, "Turner is not a word. Turner is not Topham Hatt. I am not Celeste."

To the point where it takes forever to read one story, and neither one of us can concentrate.

I don't think he's old enough to understand how it works. I've tried. I'm at a loss.