星期天Sunday

最近，曼尼開始把自己闖的禍怪罪到他虛構(gòu)的朋友頭上。有一天他砸了一個(gè)盤子，卻跟老媽說是約翰尼·切達(dá)干的，似乎這個(gè)約翰尼·切達(dá)總是這個(gè)圈子里的害群之馬。Lately,Manny has been blaming things he does on his imaginary friends.The other day he smashed a plate on the floor and then told Mom it was Johnny Cheddar,who seems to be the troublemaker of the pack.

曼尼砸碎了盤子還撒謊，這是罪加一等的事，但老媽沒有罰曼尼，卻罰了約翰尼·切達(dá)思過。最悲劇的是老媽罰“他”在客廳里新買的那張活動(dòng)沙發(fā)上思過，結(jié)果我就不能坐在那上面看電視了。Instead of punishing Manny for breaking a plate and then lying about it,Mom gave a time-out to Johnny Cheddar.What really stinks is that the time-out chair is the brand-new recliner in the family room,so I couldn’t sit in it to watch television.

我前面說過，我很清楚這些虛構(gòu)朋友全是胡扯，不過曼尼這么認(rèn)真，簡直讓人有些神經(jīng)質(zhì)了。每次我要在屋里坐下之前，都要確認(rèn)一下，以免坐到曼尼的朋友身上。Like I said,I know this whole imaginary friend thing is a bunch of baloney,but Manny acts so serious about it that it’s kind of spooky.Whenever I go to sit down somewhere in the house,I make sure none of Manny’s friends are around.

我最怕的就是跳到沙發(fā)上看電視，把小吉姆給壓扁了。What worries me most is plop down on the sofa to watch TV and squish Tiny Jim.

倒不是說我最近常看電視。老媽很擔(dān)心電視看多了影響曼尼的社交能力，所以他在家的時(shí)候，老媽就不想開電視。It’s not like I’m watching a lot of television these days anyway.Mom is pretty worried about Manny and his social skills,so she doesn’t like the TV to be on when Manny’s around.

最近，老媽想出了一個(gè)點(diǎn)子，叫“家庭之夜”，讓我們一起玩桌游或者外出吃飯，但就是不看電視。Recently,Mom came up with this idea called “Family Night”,where we play a board game or go out to dinner together instead of watching TV.

我猜這個(gè)活動(dòng)的用意在于讓我們有更多互動(dòng)，對曼尼造成潛移默化的影響。I guess the idea is to get us to interact with one another more so it rubs off on Manny.