blogs
The Un-Funny Bone
Many times on this blog I have bemoaned the simple reality of aging: her, not me!! The bittersweet farewells I seem to wave at every milestone, both large and small, the tiny baby, toddler, preschooler I miss, yet can barely remember. BUT ... there is one aspect of little kid-dom that I promise I will miss not at all, in fact, I pray please please please let her sense of humor NOT remain the same!!!
Has anyone ever listened, really listened to what a five-year-old thinks is funny? No? Well, let me tell you: You're not missing anything. Flipper's largely undeveloped sense of humor is almost painful to witness. Hence the following "conversation" -- keeping in mind that all of my comments are silent. Usually.
"Know what Elijah and I call helicopters?"
No, do I want to?
"We call them helicopoptors!! Isn't that funny?!? HELICOPOPTORS!!!" (this is repeated about three thousand times)
Please make it stop.
Kids Flipper's age find, perhaps blessedly, almost anything funny: the dog farting, underwear on the floor, someone tripping and falling down, the most basic and simplest of cartoons, NPR theme music...wait! I find the theme music funny too! But you get my point: It is unbearable, because not only is juvenile humor, well, JUVENILE, and therefore pretty UN-funny, but what we (adults) find funny either results in tears: "Oh, honey! Mommy was just being sarcastic!! I'm not serious!!" Or it requires a long and excruciating "explanation" that results in nothing resembling either enlightenment or a better-developed sense of humor.
These things take time, I know. But I can barely bring myself to contemplate the truly terrifying: What if it doesn't change?? Because I don't think I can take poor Flipper's particular brand of "humor," and I use that word loosely, for years to come. Hopefully, like all other phases, I can utter the mantra of parents everywhere: This too shall pass.
Starting this week, Leigh moves from Mondays to Fridays on TriangleMom2Mom. She takes over from Gigi Harrell, who continues to blog on Stroller Lane and promises to be back here all the time too.
Leigh Sparacino
Leigh is a TriangleMom2Mom featured blogger, appearing every Monday.
Leigh grew up in Durham, attended college in North Carolina, left the area for an island off the coast of Georgia, the high mountains of Colorado, and her favorite mountains in western North Carolina, before returning to the Triangle eight years ago. She lives near Carrboro with her 4.5-year-old daughter Flipper and two dogs. She is single in marital status only, surrounded by friends, family, and her daughter's very involved and loving father. She works part-time and tries to be as involved as possible in her daughter's school, The Emerson Waldorf School, where Flipper is a kindergartner. She likes wood, glass and other natural materials for toys, loves the principles of Waldorf education and hates plastic. She might be the only person in the world with no TV and who hasn't been to a movie in 15 years, but races to the mailbox every Saturday for the most recent issue of People magazine. In other words, a contradiction. Or just human.
Leigh appears Fridays on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Leigh on her blog Flipper and Me.
Comments
Oh....you might not like hanging out with my friends. We do things like coin phrases, use them continuously and laugh every time we do. Example: my friend Kim's son is in the Army and always seems to have a problem finding his beret to complete his uniform and he can't wear his uniform without it.
I said, "Can't you go to the Army store and buy him several so that isn't a problem?" My friend Marcy said, "Or get them on e-beret!" Hysterical laughter ensues. So, of course, we find any opportunity to re-use that, resulting in more hysterical laughter. Maybe we never moved beyond Flipper's stage!
Actually, helicopopters is pretty funny. But maybe just the first hundred times.