Oh my gosh, I just used the word "peeps" on my blog and I wasn't talking about baby chickens. Heaven help me.
Now, my husband is a funny guy, too, but he is, more often than not, just accidentally funny. He does not share my love of slapstick, sarcastic, off-the-wall stuff, stuff that is so weird and ridiculous you can't help but laugh. Or I can't help but laugh, anyway. When I was rolling on the couch (literally) the first time I watched Napoleon Dynamite he was sitting in the recliner looking at the TV then looking at me and shaking his head. We've watched it so many times now he'll chuckle in a few places, but I really think he's laughing at the kids and me more than the stuff on the screen. We rarely laugh at the same things. Where I was laughing so hard I snorted during Date Night he dozed off and my snorting woke him up. He did like The Hangover, but only because it was raunchy and had lots of cuss words. He does not like Saturday Night Live. I can bust into a loud rendition of Dana Carvey's "Choppin' Broccoli" and giggle at my own self, while he'll look at me blankly and say, "Why are you singing about broccoli? And who is this lady you bought broccoli for? What's broc-o-lay? Is that a kind of broccoli?" And at that point, depending on my mood, I will either bust out laughing at him or just leave the room in frustration to go sing about broccoli somewhere else.
But then there are times he does something like this: (excerpt from this post)
Mom got Paul some flannel pants for Christmas and these are the softest flannel pants I've ever felt in my life. He realllllly likes those pants. The second night he owned them, I was in the kitchen fixing a glass of tea when I heard him holler for me to "comere". Tea glass in hand, I walked around the corner and saw him standing just outside our foyer, with his hands on the banister, his legs about shoulder-width apart. He looked at me over his shoulder and in a thick Mexican accent said, "These are my recreation pants. Do you like them?" Then, just like Jack Black did in the movie, squeezed his buttcheeks and shot me a sexy look and I spit tea across my dining room. Then he took one hand off of the banister, put it on his hip then turned around and sauntered towards me while I was still choking on sweet tea and then he said, "Sometimes you wear stretchy pants.........just for fun."
And those moments are gold, people, pure comedy gold. Because it's so unlike him.
So, knowing our children share the same parents, it was a 50/50 gamble as to whether our kids would have a sense of humor or not.
If I've heard it once I heard it 43, 273 times: "Your mom". And by "Your mom" I mean, the age-old slam. The ones I remember growing up were like, "Your mom is so fat when she sits around the house she sits around the house" and "Your mom is so ugly she makes a mud fence in a rain storm look pretty" and the likes. Well, my children have taken this once-insult to the ridiculous. I can holler from the utility room, "Kids come get your laundry!" and I guarantee I will hear the reply from at least one of them, "Your mom's laundry." Abby is the worst, by far. I asked her if she wanted a slush at Sonic the other day. She said, "Your mom's a slush." When I ignored her and then asked what flavor she wanted she replied, "Your mom's a flavor."
Sigh.
The other day, I kid you not I heard that my mom was:
--a corn dog
--a front porch
--a flappy pappy
--a rotten French fry
--a stray dog
--a pothole
--a Walmart
--a hay bale
--a sofa
--a Vienna sausage
--a spider web
--a dish soap
--a tree frog
--Rice Krispy Treat
--boob sweat
and many, many more.
Okay, to be honest, the last two were from my friend, Stacie, who got in on the fun via text message and nearly made me wreck while driving down Main I was laughing so hard.
Yesterday we were in the van talking about car accidents and how each of the kids are getting pickups for their first vehicles because they can only fit one other person in the cab and not a whole slew of kids, thus avoiding the need for me to get a prescription for Xanax and possibly therapy every time one of my kids leaves the house. The two oldest groaned at the thought of only being able to haul one friend (and of course, I heard, "Your mom's a truck" from the backseat, too) and I said, "Well, I'm only trying to save your lives," and crossed my arms to signal the discussion was over. Then Kady, who posesses amazing butt-kissing abilities, said, "Well, Mom's right. Teenagers acting stupid and horsing around is the main cause of traffic accidents in America today."
Of course, when she said that I chuckled and said, "Thank you, Kady, with that report from the eight-year-old traffic safety commission." Without missing a beat she said, "And now .... back to you, Kristin."
I thought Paul was going to have to pull over to the side of the road he was laughing so hard. She's the one that is funny accidentally, like her daddy.
Sam's my slapstick hero. He's The Three Stooges all wrapped up into an episode of SNL and any movie starring Steve Martin. He can make faces, fall down, run into things and act goofy better than any kid I know. He never fails to make everyone around him crack up.
These past few weeks have been particularly hilarious around here. It seems like daily one or all three of them have spouted off with something particularly hilarious, like so funny the whole family cracks up simultaneously. I'm not sure if it's just my stress level causes me to laugh at things I don't ordinarily find funny, or if it's because the kids have just figured out how to say things at just the right time so they know they'll get a snort out of me. Either way, they are quickly becoming masters at the art of tickling my funny bone. And besides....
Your mom's a funny bone.
