Things to think about

I think my youngest has swine flu. Last week I caught him sucking the syrup out of his pancake and spitting the bread back in the plate. A few days later as I was clearing the breakfast table I noticed a sticky spoon laying by his half eaten waffle. Seems spoons scoop sticky syrup more easily than forks.

Despite all our efforts to stifle it, apparently our kids are officially “new age”. They discovered a rotary dial telephone at the office and were completely at a loss as to how to make it work.

After running out of our regular soap-in-a-bottle a few weeks ago, I put a new bar of soap in the bathtub. A real bar of soap. At bath time, both boys yelled into the other room, “Mom! What is this thing?” “Yeah, Mom, what does it do?”

A mother knows she is just past exhausted when she tries brushing her hair with the cleaning scrubber and taking off her makeup with the fingernail polish remover…all in the same week.

Things you never really want to hear your kids say:
Sometime before ten in the morning, “Mom! That third sucker I had was kinda squishy!”

“Um, Mommy, uh, I didn’t mean to, but there’s kind of a lot of water in the kitchen floor.” Um, Cooper, uh, that’s what happens when you turn over an ice chest full of dirty water.

“I think I slid into a pile of cow poop,” just seconds after sliding into a pile of cow poop.

“I’m cleaning the bathroom sink for you, Mom.” Which initially sounds like a kind gesture until one realizes it is being said by a three year old with limited access to appropriate cleaning supplies. That’s right. The only thing he could reach: half a roll of wet toilet paper.

Who’d have thought a trip to the cotton patch would have one kid wanting to weave a shirt and the other kid in tears because he wasn’t allowed to eat it. Cotton, son. Not cotton candy.

Brisco Berra, at 6a.m., hair standing on end, wet thumb dangling, eyes wide, all of about two inches from my sleeping face, and he screams in a whisper: “Mom, tomorrow is today!” Yep. It sure is.

Pork rinds really are the perfect mommy snack. No matter where you leave an opened bag or how long it sits, they taste the same-days later-when you finally remember you were eating them in the first place.

Does anyone really know the appropriate age for molding a child’s sense of humor? I certainly don’t. Evidently though, it’s sometime after age five. Last week, Uncle Derik decided he had a knock-knock joke he wanted to share. “Go ahead,” I said. “But I’m sure you’ll have to explain the format.” The poor children: deprived and undeveloped.

“Knock-knock,” Derik said, at which time he was met by two sets of eyes and one collective, blank stare.
“You are supposed to say, ‘Who’s there?’” I told them.
“Who’s there?” they chimed.
“Centipede,” said Derik.
“…Centipede who?” I encouraged them to say.
“Santa peed on the Christmas tree,” Uncle Derik said with a grin.
And again with the blank stare; these boys had no clue. Abbott and Costello they are not.

But they did give the rest of us a laugh when they tried their hand at telling their own brand of knock-knocks. Cooper was really on fire.

“Knock-knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Banana hat.”
“Banana hat who?”
“LUIGI!!!”

“Knock-knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Banana car.”
“Banana car who?”
“LUIGI!!! HAHAHA!”

And so my child’s sense of humor was born. After a few minutes of knock-knock/Luigi jokes, I was laughing so hard I had to leave the room. I know. Only a mother. But the gusto with which he was sharing was almost too much to watch. It was only when Brisco started telling knock-knock/poop face jokes that we had to put an end to the party. Oh well. I guess we can’t all be funny.

And that’s All in a day’s work!