Jokes

Jokes have been the topic of much confusion and interest around here, but sadly, almost no skill. For one thing, many of the jokes an adult knows are inappropriate for children. But even when you go down your short list of appropriate jokes, it's surprising how often a joke depends on a person having a certain amount of knowledge. Without that knowledge, the joke isn't funny.

What did Cinderella say when her pictures were late?
"Some day my prints will come."

This is only funny if you are familiar with getting film developed or printed off at a store somewhere and that they are called prints. This may not have relevance to a child who is familiar with printing pictures at home and has only visited one hour photo labs and who calls pictures "pictures" and not prints.

In other words, illustrating what goes into making a joke funny has been extremely difficult. The girls laugh at jokes out of obligation, not because they think it is funny. And they think nothing of coming up with their own joke.

"Why did the dog dance?" Imogen asked.

"Why?" I said.

"Because he wanted to go for a ride!" she said. Genevieve laughed. (She's the perfect audience.)

"Is that a joke?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Was it funny?" I asked.

"Yes," Imogen said. "The dog danced! Duh."

I reflected that I did not teach my child to say duh, and she probably learned it at a school where she also takes etiquette classes.

"Do you get it now?" Imogen asked.

"Um, no," I said.

"I'm no good at making up jokes," Imogen said dejectedly as visions of being the next David Letterman were killed before her eyes.

"People don't usually make up jokes. They hear jokes and they tell them to other people," I said. So I told her a knock knock joke.

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you going to open the door?

Ok, so I don't know all that many jokes myself. I googled for kids jokes and now I know a lot more.

How do you catch a unique rabbit?
Unique up on it!

HA!

More is better

It was Imogen's turn to help me in the kitchen. We were making spaghetti. Imogen chopped the ground beef and poured the jar of sauce in the pan.

She asked, "Did I make this by myself?"

I said, "More or less."

"More or less..." she said quietly to herself. "I hope it's more..."

Don we now our gay apparel...

Now, I love Christmas. But I hate all the cheesy, tacky and just plain ugly things that come with it. There's something badly wrong with a holiday that produces a sweater like this... "embellished with fiber optic lights!" Seriously.

Imogen's drawing

Imogen's drawing style has recently changed to reflect body mass (rather than stick men) and more details which includes very large ears, googly eyes and creepy looking teeth.

Labels are also important.

Internal alarm clock

I have been getting up at 5:30. I wish I could say that I've been getting up at 5:30 because I've been going to bed early and thus have been getting plenty of sleep, waking up refreshed and ready to go at 5:30 in the morning. Alas, it is not so.

Genevieve, however, seems downright perky each morning as she knocks on my bedroom door to say that she is hungry/bored/not tired/lonely/afraid of the dark/etc. Children are surprisingly less adorable when the sun goes down.

I used to be sympathetic. I mean, poor kid, afraid of the dark. But now I don't care. Sleep deprivation does that to you. I've explained many times that nothing will get her. I bought her a night light and even took off the little plastic shade so that it shines directly into her eyes. I allow her to get up and turn on additional lights in the house without comment. But she's rather disrespectful of other people's sleep. I can ignore the hallway light being turned on. I cannot ignore it flashing like a strobe light while she flicks it on and off and on and off. I commented rather loudly on that one (we were all awake anyway).

The girls have been ordered to stay in bed till Jeremy and I get up. Our alarm goes off at 6:30 and I think that's unpleasantly early enough. And honestly, neither of us care at all if they wake up and get up and do something extremely quiet. But nooo, they are out of bed with all the subtlety of a marching band, playing with toys, getting into loud arguments, or banging on my door and claiming they are starving. I yank open the door looking like death itself and scream something to the effect of, "THEN GET A PIECE OF FRUIT OR SOMETHING I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT GO AWAY I'M TRYING TO SLEEP ARE YOU INSANE!!!!!"

Then Genevieve cries because I yelled. And I can't go back to sleep because she's crying. I have to say, it's been a great way to start my mornings. Every morning. Except Saturday but only because they are at Jeremy parents' house behaving like perfect angels and sleeping till noon or something.

Outdated technology

I remember when I first heard about the Internet. I remember playing text based games with no graphics. I remember when the coolest thing our computer did was Paint. I remember my first clunky gray cell phone. I remember the first person I met who had a digital camera. I didn't really get the concept.

My children are growing up in a world that never lacked these things. Once I found a disposable camera in the back of some drawer and took a picture of them. They wanted to see it on the back of the camera immediately. I took tons of pictures of them for my photography class last semester and they finally got used to this appalling limitation of 35mm cameras. Last night Imogen asked me if I would teach her how to use Photoshop when she is eight.

My kids have spent more time on cell phones than regular phones in their lives. All "regular" phones are cordless phones. The inconvenience of not being reachable at all times doesn't really occur to them. Oh and cell phones all have cameras. They are growing up in a world that not only has always had email, but where small hand held devices like cell phones and electronic organizers can email.

My microwave died a couple days ago. It's basically a very large digital clock now. Today I went to heat something up for Genevieve's lunch and I put it in the microwave, punched in the time and it again failed to turn on. I sighed and dumped the soup into a small pan to heat it over the stove. I was on my (cell) phone with a friend (who I met online).

"My microwave is broken," I complained. "Can you believe people used to have to boil everything?"

I found a new way to torment my children

The fun thing about kids is that sometimes they don't realize you are torturing them.

So, today, I invented a new game. A game any adult would call "cruel and unusual punishment" but which my kids thought was fabulously cool. I told them to close their eyes and hold their arms above their heads, and I would tickle them and whoever put their arms down first lost.

And they actually cooperated with this. Surprisingly, Genevieve won both times. She held her arms straight up, squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on "turning her tickle spots off" which she can do alarmingly well for a five year old. I've never met a child that young with that much will power and frankly, I don't see what the fun in that is. (No wonder she's so much trouble.) Imogen put her hands on her head, closed her eyes, then peeked constantly and kept bending over so her elbows would be at her sides.

Then, when I got bored of the new game, they got annoyed and begged to play some more.

Genevieve's song

Genevieve has never been very devoted to eating. Imogen will wolf down her food then leave the table. Genevieve plays, talks, goofs off, sings songs, instead of eating. This morning, while staring at her tiny amount of honey nut cheerios (it's not like I'm feeding them gruel), she was singing. After a while of ignoring her, I tuned in and this is what she was singing.

Aaand, I wish I was a shirt.
A nice shirt.
I would let people put me on.
And I would be so nice to them.
I would be beautiful.
People love beautiful things.
Evil people I would be mean to.
I would hit them if I had arms.
I wish I was a shirt that had arms.
I wish I was a shiiiiirt!

And I wish I was a chair...

At this point I interrupted with much regret and told her to get dressed. She had about 30 cheerios in the bottom of her bowl and she barely ate any of them. She's really not much of a breakfast person.

I have bangs

Cool, huh?

My evening...

It's raining, but my evening got a lot more wet when Imogen noticed a Sonic and inexplicably became hysterical because we had not gone there in a long time. Imogen gets like this sometimes. Not about Sonic, but hysterical for no good reason. Usually after a night of not enough sleep. The next day, she runs out of steam and fixates on something minor and is completely irrational about it. There's no talking her out of it. If you demand loudly enough that she drop it, she will move on to some other utterly insignificant issue so it's no use even trying to cheer her up. Imogen was informed (as she sobbed about her lack of french fries) that she was being unreasonable and that she needs to pick up her room.

Also this evening, Jeremy was helping me cook dinner and he said, "I just don't understand how you can fail to appreciate the benefits of well chopped ground beef."

I laughed hysterically before informing him that it's not that I dislike well chopped ground beef. It's just that I'm not particularly passionate about it.

Dancing

I forgot my cell phone, so when I went to pick up Jeremy, I couldn't call him to tell him we were there. So we went inside, racing the fat raindrops to the door. But the building was locked up. A janitor let us in but Jeremy's department also locked. We decided that he would figure out that we were there eventually and we went back down to the parking lot.

The rain had already stopped, but the sky was dark and ominous with light breaking through in various colors at the horizons. Imogen sought shelter from the wind in the van, but Genevieve danced wildly under the strange sky, somehow infused with an energy that made her ignore the cold. She laughed as the wind whipped through her hair. I squinted up at the building and noticed Jeremy peeking through the blinds from his office.

"Daddy has seen us!" I said. "He will come and rescue us!" Both girls shouted gleefully and Imogen joined Genevieve in the near empty parking lot. She paused to say, "I'm dancing for joy!"

Imogen must know why she dances, I suppose. For Genevieve, it is enough to dance.

Sisterly love

Today I told the girls they needed to pick up in the family room. They accomplished exactly nothing, of course, but this didn't stop them from fighting about it. Finally Genevieve came to me in the next room crying that Imogen had coughed on her new umbrella. "She said she's going to cough on all my things!" Genevieve said. I gave her hugs and demanded that Imogen apologize.

Belief

Children seem to constantly categorize things. Two of these categories are "real" and "not real". For instance, the other day Genevieve asked me if unicorns were real. I said no, but somehow still go into some conversation about how much more expensive they would be than horses if they were real. Either way, Genevieve was disappointed to have to put those in the not real category.

The Tooth Fairy has been a confusion. I was recently unmasked as the Tooth Fairy, but I never confirmed it. I always pretending to be shocked at the allegations, but I figured the jig was up. (I never denied it either- I don't believe in lying to my kids.) However, last week when Imogen lost her forth tooth (while trying to open a water bottle with her teeth), I forgot to perform my fairy duties that night. And the next night. After two nights Imogen was really upset. I was openly sympathetic and mentally kicking myself for having forgotten two nights in a row. (What kind of fairy am I??)

Anyway, that day while Imogen was at school, I rushed home after one of my classes and stuffed three dollars in an envelope and traded it for the tooth. When Imogen got in the car she quizzed me about my whereabouts that day in an effort to see if I had been away from home long enough for the Tooth Fairy to have stopped by. That's right. Somehow the unreliability of the Tooth Fairy has convinced Imogen that I'm not her after all. She came to this conclusion completely on her own. I should feel flattered. Mostly I'm confused. Don't my kids know me? But apparently they have not outgrown the idea that Mommy is really terrific and would not have failed so abysmally.

We got home that evening and Imogen was thrilled, of course. "Three whole dollars!" she said.

"Three dollars?" Jeremy glanced at me. "Overpriced tooth..."

"Maybe the Tooth Fairy felt guilty for not coming the last two nights," I said through clenched teeth.

As fun as the Tooth Fairy is, I've always thought Santa Clause was idiotic. I grew up not believing in Santa. My parents spoiled us like crazy and they wanted credit for it! As do I. Last year around Christmas, Imogen asked me if Santa was real. "No," I said bluntly. She paused, thinking about that and then said... "I don't believe you." What??

You've got to be kidding..

Doctor's visit

Imogen went to the doctor yesterday. She's six and a half (four feet, one inch tall) and still hasn't had the shots she was supposed to get when she was five. Why? Good question.

We used to visit a doctor in this same practice. We switched when he told me that "Someday she's going to need to figure out that you're the mother and she's the child." Now, I know when my kid is being a brat and I don't really tolerate my kid being a brat. Genevieve happened to be completely terrified, and her doctor and his nurse were being impatient and rude about it. So, new doctor. Same practice though. Which means they use the same charts. Which means that Imogen's lack of vaccinations should have been clear to them when she was brought in for allergies, an odd rash, and various other minor complaints. But no one bothered to tell me that she was in need of shots, and it's not like I've memorized the vaccination schedule.

Her current doctor was perplexed at why they had not reminded me about it, but didn't really make a big deal about it. Her nurse, however, came in with the shots and mentioned that it was "really very shocking" that Imogen hadn't had them yet. I made some kind of minor noise of assent like "mm-hm." She continued, "Kind of scary actually."

Scary? Give a break. Imogen's had all sorts of vaccines in the past. She's at least partially protected against these diseases, most of which are very uncommon in the US. It's not like we've been hiking through villages in the Amazon where polio is going to just jump out and get you or something. I think this "shocking, scary" routine is a little on the paranoid side.

Furthermore, if she was trying for some kind of guilt trip, I really don't appreciate the effort. What's with medical professionals being rude to me? I didn't say anything to her about it, because I didn't want to be rude in front of my children, and I didn't want to be rude right before she was going to stick needles into my child. So I just let it go. But it's just annoying.

Of a humorous nature...

My children understand the question-answer format of a joke.

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To get to the other side.

What they don't understand is the concept of a joke. The idea behind it. Which is, of course, to be funny. Their jokes tend to lack this essential element. However, they are well versed in the etiquette of a joke- specifically, that after the joke is told, it is polite to laugh. Or cackle uproariously at the top of one's voice. Whatever.

After I gently suggested that maybe she doesn't understand what a joke is supposed to be, Imogen offered to tell me "her best joke". I listened attentively.

"How do you make a house talk?" she said.
"I don't know, how?" I said.
"Throw a stick at it!" she said, and laughed. Genevieve laughed (Genevieve is the perfect audience). I didn't laugh.
"I don't get it," I said.
Imogen frowned at me. "That's my best joke," she said.

Tonight, in the car on the way home, I was talking to Jeremy while the girls played in the back. During a lull in our conversation, Imogen spoke up.

"Mommy, I like to trick people," she said smugly.
"Oh really?" I said.
"Yep, like this," she said. She held out two fists. "Pick one!" I twisted around in my seat and tapped her left hand. She opened it to reveal a button. There was a pause.
"I don't get it," I said.
"It works with Genevieve," she said.

A moment later she was trying again. "Pick one!" I tapped the left hand again and this time it was empty. "HAHA!" she laughed triumphantly.
"I don't get it," I said again.
"I tricked you!" she said.
"Was there a button in the other hand?" I asked.
"Yes," she held it up.
"Then it's not a trick. I just chose the wrong one. What's the trick?" I said.
There was a long pause. "Well... it's a trick because... it would have been in this hand.... but it... wasn't..." she said.
"Oh..." I said. "That's not really a trick."

How to be Mean to Your Child

I could probably publish a book on this topic but honestly, that's not something you should brag about, you know?

Changing the subject completely...

The other day I was playing a silly game with Genevieve where I held out my hand and said "Gimme five!" and she would try and I would pull my hand away so that she missed. Over and over. I would let her hit a few times to keep her interest. But mostly she missed. Then I put my hand on her lap and so whenever she missed she would hit her own leg. I would cackle madly and she would growl dramatically at me. Then I moved my hand to her chest so that she was hitting her chest whenever she missed.

You would think she would see where this was going. I moved my hand to her forehead, palm facing outward and said "Gimme five." And she did. Or at least she tried, and I yanked my hand away and she smacked herself in the forehead. I about died laughing.

Imogen was watching and thought this was very clever so she decided to try to pull the same trick on me. Only she didn't quite get it. She put her hand on her own forehead and said "Gimme five, mommy!" And when I tried to, she pulled her hand away so that I smacked her forehead. The look on her face was priceless.

We try to limit ourselves to only very mature humor in this house.

Genevieve's artistic skills

"What is this?" I asked.
"Oh Genevieve drew that," Jeremy said. "It's Zeus."
"Zeus..." I said, staring incredulously at the drawing.
"Well you know... he's furry..." Jeremy said.
"And being electrocuted," I said.

Tortillas

I went shopping on Saturday. Grocery shopping. I hate grocery shopping. I have a budget and you know, that's no fun. Either way, I brought home to food, and made Jeremy carry it in and made him help me put it away. He pulled out a package of tortillas. He kind of shook his head, half confused but half resigned. Then he put the tortillas in the fridge under the other two packages of tortillas.

"Ah well... you know how it is.." I said vaguely.

"Right," he said. He doesn't understand how I am capable of going shopping with neither a list nor a clear idea of what we already own. I say that I don't need a list because I forget to put things on it, or I forget to bring the list, or I lose the list on my way there, or I lose it somewhere in the store. And no one can keep track of exactly everything that they own. You're bound to forget something and buy something you already have.

Sometimes I worry that I have some kind of subconscious fear of running out of tortillas and sour cream, but honestly, it's not like we're throwing these things away constantly. It's more like we simply have plenty on hand. Just in case.

On Sunday I made tacos. Jeremy pulled out the top package of tortillas, which were stacked by age, oldest on top because he (strangely) doesn't have faith that I will carefully examine all the packages in the fridge before I decide which one is worthy of my taco meat. I made a face at the package.

"They're fine!" he insisted.

"Oh?" I said suspiciously. "What's the date on them?" Now, dates on packages of food are a sore subject with us. Jeremy insists that if something is dated for, say 9/17/07, then that is the date by which the makers of the product were hoping to sell it. To me, the food is spoiled at 12:01 AM on September 17 of 2007. So perhaps Jeremy can be forgiven for sighing at this question as he looked for the date on the tortilla bag.

"August of 2007," he said. "They're fine!"

"AH HA!! I knew it! You're always trying to make me eat old food!" I said. I made a show of meticulously examining the tortillas under the light, sniffing at them and flopping them while squinting at them. We mustn't let him think he can shove any old food at me and I'll just eat it.

Ants

In the car today, Genevieve says out of the blue, "Ants can see all around them."

As she was carrying her Happy Meal to the table after we got home, she stopped suddenly and turned around and recited, "An ant is an insect because it has six legs and three body parts." She turned and walked to the table to eat her lunch.

The Saga of the Shoes

The girls get a lot of hand me downs from Jeremy's little cousins who are not so little as my kids. Nowhere is this more helpful than in shoes. I barely buy them shoes, and in fact, we have too many of certain types of shoes. Imogen was told to choose three pairs of sneakers and the rest are put in the closet to await Genevieve's feet.

One pair of shoes that Imogen received was a very nice pair of black shoes that was perfect for school. They looked like they hadn't even been worn. They fit her well. Perfect. Except that she hated them. She concocted various reasons for this, and finally, in irritation, I took her to Target to buy her another pair. I'll spare you the details of that shopping excursion. Suffice it to say, that there were no shoes there that lacked the features about the shoes she had at home that she claimed she hated, but nevertheless, Imogen was very passionate about the need for new shoes. So after much heated debate, I bought her a new pair.

She liked the new ones, and that was what was important. I figured she had the right to have a simply irrational dislike every so often and I wasn't going to insist that she support all her likes and dislike with documented reasons. She wore the new shoes for the first few weeks of school.

Until yesterday. She misplaced the new ones so she put on the old ones and wore them. In the van on the way home she said "I ran on the play ground and these didn't slip off at all!" This was one of her reasons she hated the shoes. (I mentioned to someone that she "disliked" the shoes and she corrected me, "No, I hate them.")

"That's nice," I said.
"I think these are my favorite shoes now," she said.
"You have got to be kidding me!" I said.
"What?" she said.
"After all I went through for your shoes? You like those now? You are the most impossible child I have ever met," I said.
"Well, maybe not my favorite," she backpedaled.
"They can be your favorite," I said. "But you are the most impossible child I've ever met."
"God made everyone different," she said.

Yeah... "different" is one way to put it. I had to laugh.