Posts Tagged ‘Funny’
January 12, 2019 @ 10:00 am | Filed under:
Art In case you haven’t seen it: this battle of the museums is the most delightful thing I’ve read on Twitter in a long time. The Museum of English Country Life challenged the British Museum to “show us your best duck.” Museums around the world answered the call. Click through, unfurl all the responses, and settle in for some laughs.
Now I want to draw all these ducks! (Well, maybe not the “resting” ones…)
Rose: Remember that time in Warcraft when you tried to pickpocket a bear and instead you aggro’d it?
Me: Yeah?
Rose: That’s exactly what it’s like to have a little brother.
Me, singing in a loop: People are people so why should it be etc
Huck: Do you want to be singing that over and over?
Me: Not particularly
Huck, eyes lighting up: “Oh baby pleeeeease, give a little respect to-oo-oo-oo me!” There, does that help?
Whew! We moved Jane back up to college over the weekend and then, back here at home, got to spend an extra day visiting with my parents, who had come to stay with the rest of the gang while we were away. And then it was hustle-like-crazy to catch up from being gone. Which is to say, business as usual.
It’s too late in the day for a nice coherent post, but I wanted to toss down some stories I’ll otherwise forget. Huckisms, mostly…he’s been on a roll. Tonight he wanted me to take dictation for his Christmas list—no moss growing on this kid. I dutifully wrote down his three longed-for items and he leaned over the page, frowning anxiously at my cursive. “What if Santa doesn’t know this fancy writing?”
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This morning I read aloud from Child’s History of the World—our tried-and-true first history book for the younger set. Today’s chapter was about Sparta and Athens (mainly Sparta, with a thorough description of what a young Spartan boy’s life might have been like). Huck listened intently to the plight of Spartan seven-year-olds—an age only months around the corner from him—and had lots of interjections to make along the way.
After the chapter, I asked him to narrate in the casual way I generally begin with around age six or seven. Not casual enough. He instantly froze up. My kids have been about half and half with narration: three of them taking to it like ducks to water, and three feeling shy and put on the spot. Huck is one of the latter. He actually ran out of the room and had to be coaxed back by a big sister. I cuddled him into my lap and told him not to worry, it wasn’t a test, I was just curious to know if anything in the story jumped out at him.
Huck, scowling: No.
Me: Do you wish you were a Spartan boy?
Huck, galvanized: No! Because they had to leave their moms when they turned seven, and—
—and he was off, chattering away for a good five or six minutes about all the details in the chapter. This is the way it normally works with my reluctant narrators, and I smiled secretly into the top of his sweaty little head.
Suddenly, mid-sentence, he broke off and reared back to look at me, laughing. “Hey! You tricked me! I just told you all about it!”
We all melted with giggles. He was so honestly amused. All the rest of the day I was cracking up over the shocked, almost admiring tone of his “HEY!”
***
The other thing that happened this week is that Rilla invented a board game. It’s called “Elemental Escape” and involves players representing Fire, Water, and Electricity (twist!) racing to the finish on a track filled with monsters. She drew a game board and mounted it on cardboard, and the game pieces are all Legos. Pretty fantastic.
Huck and Rilla and I have just finished reading three chapters of The Boxcar Children—they wouldn’t let me stop—and now I give Huck a big squeeze and say, “Okay, baby, time to go play.” He’s surprised I’ve called him “baby”—I usually say “monkey” or “my love” (same difference)—and shoots a reproachful gaze my way.
“I’m not a baby.”
“I know. But you used to be, so it still pops out sometimes.”
He considers. “But I am still little.” Burrows a little closer into my side.
“Mm-hmm.” His hair has that magical small-child scent, half fruity shampoo and half little-boy-sweat.
He takes a deep breath, as if about to unburden himself of a trouble. “That’s why I’ve been wondering…”
“Yes?” The moment has become suddenly fraught; whatever is coming, it’s clearly a serious matter.
“I’ve been wondering why nobody cuts the crusts off my sandwiches.”
I shared this photo on Facebook—a cellphone shot captured at the park yesterday. Because my phone’s camera is middling, and because in the bright sun I can barely see my screen at all, and because I used an Instagram filter that looked nice on the small phone screen but appears excessively washed out in the larger view, this is not nearly as good a photo as it might have been. But it captured a happy moment in a lovely place, and I’m glad I caught it.
But the best thing about the picture is this: after I’d sent it to Facebook, I got a note from my friend Asako. My photo had appeared in her news feed immediately above this one.
She couldn’t help but giggle. Me, I guffawed.
*I wish I knew the origin of the second image so I could properly credit. If it find it, I’ll add it here.
UPDATE: Peter in the comments found the image on a t-shirt at Buck Wear Inc.
All my best Rilla material—the stories and quotes I want to save forever—winds up on Twitter and Facebook these days. (That’s the fastest way to jot something down.) But just in case Twitter goes kaboom someday, I think I’ll start a Rilla-page here for easy future memory-laning. Like most three-year-olds, she is one funny little monkey.
***
Rilla, drinking water from a mug, asks if we can pretend it’s coffee.
Me: “Sure! How is your coffee, ma’am?”
Rilla: “I don’t like coffee.”
***
Rilla: “Mommy, can we have a babysitter named Daphne?”
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Rilla chirps, bouncing: “Mommy! I’m going to free mini-Hawk Girl from the dungeon!”
Rose explains: “She means buy it on Amazon.”
***
Rilla deposits terrifyingly lifelike snake on my feet, announces: “It won’t eat me. ” Pries open rubber jaws, peers inside. “See? It won’t.”
(She sounds disappointed.)
***
Rilla names letters on cereal box: “L-I-F-E.”
Scott: “What’s that spell?”
Rilla: “Butterfly!”
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Rilla’s question of the day: “Which people bounce?”
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July 22nd. She just came in carrying a small wicker picnic basket. Knelt, opened basket, carefully spread napkin on floor, took out A BOWL OF CEREAL.
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July 17th. “Mom, what’s your favorite color? Choose red.”
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July 13th. Rilla has spent the past 20 sitting in an armchair licking a little piece of Japanese candy with all the intensity her 3yo self can muster.
***
Spent the last two hours wearing a necklace on my head as crown because I am (so Rilla declares) Mommy Princess. Forgot about it until I leaned over the dishwasher and it fell in.
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July 9th. Rilla found reading big fat YA novel. “This is my faborite book.” 3 minutes later, book is cast aside in disgust. “I don’t like it. It has WORDS.”
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July 8th. Overheard—
14yo: “Do you need help pouring the milk?”
3yo: “Nope.”
14yo: “Are you sure?”
3yo: “I don’t want to be sure.”
***
(a work in progress)
Me: Are you ready for breakfast, honey?
Rilla: Yes.
Me: What would you like?
Rilla: Pizza crust.
