When people tell me about funny things their kids did, I usually don’t find those things all that funny. Actually, they don’t tell me those things anymore because I never laugh. Or I’ll smile politely. Really, when a five year old says something like, “But I thought you were making the cake out of whole wheat flowers,” it’s just not that funny.
So now we’ve established that I am typically immune to the charms of children and their ignorant, ignorant ways. This evening, however, was an exception. I was at the gym, taking a shower, listening to the goings on a few feet away. A woman was cleaning up her two kids, both around four years old or so. One was highly verbal and fascinated by the sauna. I guess he was trying to go in because his mother was saying, “No, that’s a place where someone’s trying to have some private time.”
The kid’s response was, “But the lights are off.” This struck me as perfectly good logic. Logic that I would be hard-pressed to argue with, which is why, among numerous other reasons, I’d make a terrible parent. While she was formulating a response he further defied his mother’s will, pulling open the door. Stepping in, he exclaimed, “Man! It’s hot in here!”
Filed under: everyday life |
Races Like a Girl 
A friend’s 3 year old recently learned the Chipmunk’s Christmas song at daycare. He asked my friend to sing it, but of course my friend didn’t know the lyrics. After a few bars, his 3 year old threw up his hands and said, “Oh, just forget it.”
Point being, I find children are funniest when they’re deadpan.
And, it’s true: our children are never, ever as funny to other people as they are to us. I think it’s similar to how our bellybuttons are never as fascinating to other people as they are to their owners.
That’s a funny one too.
Apparently one of the funniest things I said as a kid was uttered when we were sitting in a horrible traffic jam. Perhaps presciently, I said, “I can RUN faster than this!” I think my Dad replied with something like, “Well, then why don’t you get out and run?” But he was fond of telling us to go play in the street.
Also, how can you be so confident that others don’t find your bellybutton an object of fascination?
well let me telling about something my kid said…
no.
I think it is worse being a parent because the other parent think they have carte blanche to fill your ears with the stupid shit their kids says.
I will mention that it delights me to no end that my daughter has inherited my sense of word play/ comic timing.