An Awkward Question

The other day Jimmy asked me a hard question. He hemmed and hawed for quite a while before he finally spit it out.
Jimmy: Mom? Why.............
Mom? Why do you and Dad.............
Ummm............Why do you and Dad.......................
Why do you and Dad sometimes say Calgon take me away?



And for those of you who did not watch enough tv in the 1980's, here is an explaination courtesy of Wikipedia:
"Calgon, take me away!"

Coty's Calgon logo
This commercial was for Calgon bath and beauty products.
In this advertisement, a woman is seen in a chaotic home scenario. As tension rises, she utters her famous line "Calgon, take me away!". The next scene shows her relaxing in a luxurious bath in a quiet room.

Mom guess what? When Simon woke up I said the pledge of allegiance to him.
- Amelia
What a patriotic way to start the day.

Super Heros and Such

Yesterday, Amelia told me:
I don't like princesses anymore. I like super heroes like Superman, Bubble Gum Girl and Wind Girl. Bubble Gum Girl is made of bubble gum and she blows giant bubbles to catch bad guys in. Wind girl blows bad guys away.

I panicked for a minute, thinking about Christmas. Not to worry, today she likes princesses again.

Things that make you say hmmmm

A few quotes from recent days:
"Mom, you are kind of like a boy, because when we play I never know what you are going to say."
- Amelia, age 4

"It's Nicholas, the fish!!!!"
- Jonathan, age 2, holding up a 2 inch piece of bread crust

"This is how you do archery."
- Jimmy, age 6, while wildly waving a toilet paper tube at a plastic penguin

"It's my pistol."
- Jimmy, age 6, proudly displaying a plastic fish shoved into a paper towel tube. Jimmy chose this pistol as his quiet toy at church, but declined to put it in the church bag, "because it might go off and shoot the Donald Duck."

Humor, Interrupted

I recently had a nice conversation with the interrupting happy frog, who politely waited his turn instead of interrupting.

Here's how I got there.

As a kid, my siblings and I must have worn out our parents' patience with knock-knock jokes. I think we had a book of them. For example:

Knock-knock!
Who's there?
Dewey.
Dewey who?
Dewey have to listen to all this knocking?

Or:

int repetitions = 3;//for extra annoyance, make this 4
for (int i = 3; i > 0; i++) {
Knock-knock!
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
}
Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

One of my brothers, who in his strenuous defense was very young, decided that the following would be a real zinger:
Knock-knock!
Who's there?
Eggs.
Eggs who?
Eggs in your face!

For added zing, he sometimes substituted words like "eyeballs" or "glasses" for "face." I remember groaning at those knock-knock-eggs jokes. I knew that one day I would have ultra-funny children, who would all inherit my dad's humor genes, and we would have a grand time.

Fast forward to about 1998. My sister called me from college (or maybe she called me when I was at college; I can't remember) to tell me the following knock-knock joke. It's great and I hate to spoil it for you, but I have heard it told on both sides of the family so if you are related to us you have probably already heard it. Okay, here it goes:

Knock-knock!
Who's there?
The interrupting cow.
The interru... ...MOOOOOOOOO!

I cracked up. After living in humor-deficient Brazil for the previous two years, I was so happy to hear a truly funny joke with an unexpected twist. The days of bad knock-knock jokes about eggs in my various body parts and accessories were long gone.

Or were they still to come?

Fast forward to about 2004, when Jimmy had become a great talker and very clever too. I was explaining the concept of knock-knock jokes to him. I told him the interrupting cow joke to illustrate. Then, for some reason I'm sure the five people I meet in heaven will ask me about and I will still be at a loss to answer, I thought I would teach this precocious but still three-year-old kiddodiddo the difference between a good knock-knock joke and a bad knock-knock joke. So I told him the eggs one. (I was young and I was foolish.) The wheels in his three-year-old mind labored furiously, and half a minute later he came back with the following knee-slapper:

Knock-knock!
Who's there?
The interrupting egg...craaaack!

The interrupting egg. How quaint. It was really funny at the time, but I fear I have permanently damaged his humor quotient. We'll see.

The result is that our kids now believe that all good knock-knock jokes involve some animal or object or phrase interrupting someone. For example, here was Amelia's contribution:

Knock-knock!
Who's there?
The interrupting princess!
The interrupting princess who?
(Imagine that sounds of crickets they play in movies when they want you to imagine silence, and then...)
Daaaance!

Unfortunately for Amelia and Jonathan, they have not figured out how to interrupt yet in this context. They are very good interrupters at other times, especially Amelia, but they don't get the interruption in the interrupting knock-knock jokes they concoct.

This year, two-year-old Jonathan became a major league talker, and once he learned about interrupting knock-knock jokes, he made up a two-parter. First he told us this one (dictated in his two-year-old accent):

Knock-knock!
Who's there?
The intewupting happy fwog.
The interrupting happy frog who?
(That cricket sound, then in a syrupy sweet voice...)
Wibbit, wibbit!

Next came the pièce de resistance:

Knock-knock!
Who's there?
The intewupting bad fwog.
The interrupting bad frog who?
(Crickets, then in his best growling voice...)
WIBBIT! WIBBIT!

It was then, during my laughter, that I realized that kids don't have to have a grown-up sense of humor to be delightful joke tellers. They enjoy telling jokes because they want to entertain, because they see us giggling at jokes. I'm grateful for our very clever children. I hope they will always try to smile and laugh.

Our Weekend with Pooh and Friends

Friday, Jimmy came home from school with and extra backpack. It contained Rabbit and Tigger, two of Winnie the Pooh's friends. It also contained a toothbrush, a blanket, 2 movies, a book (the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh), and a journal to record the wonderful things they did together. He unpacked the backpack, and set Rabbit and Tigger on the shelf, "I'm putting them up high, in case we have a pie fight."
We don't normally pie fight. In fact, we don't ever pie fight, but I can take a hint. So, I told the kids if they cleaned up their rooms, they could have a pie fight, using up the remaining whipped cream from Thanksgiving. Finally, after dinner, with their rooms clean, I handed them each a whipped cream pie on the patio. They had an unusual strategy. Jimmy began flinging handfuls of pie at Amelia, to make it last longer. Amelia decided to wait it out so she could have the last laugh. When it was over, Amelia looked kind of like the spotted dog, with splotches of whipped cream covering one eye and the rest of her body. Jimmy grinned triumphantly "Did I win?!" he asked. Rabbit and Tigger watched on from a camp chair.
We also decorated the tree, with mostly non breakable ornaments. The kids decorated one side really well (the ornaments have already begun their annual migration across the tree.) Jimmy's contribution was to place a photo ornament of himself over the star at the top of the tree! Amelia put some ballet shoes (?) on the tree. The ward party followed that night. Very well done, with a play dough activity to occupy kids on the stage during the mingle portion.
Jimmy gave a cute talk on Sunday beginning "Hi my name is Jimmy S___..." He seemed very comfortable behind the pulpit and remarked later that he liked speaking there very much.
So what did he write about in Pooh's journal? Something like: We read the book but didn't have time to watch the movie.
OH well, at least I enjoyed the time!