Image by lippert61 via Flickr
My kids are growing up fast. Even though the age differences amongst the three of them means I'll have children in my house until 2028 (2028!), the oldest graduates high school in four years which, as we adults know, is a blink of the eye. Today, though, I'm not lamenting them growing older. I'm rejoicing because my kids are growing a sense of humor. They're funny!
Gone are the days of faking a laugh for the fortieth time in a week upon hearing the punchline "Orange you glad I didn't say banana?"
No longer do I have to decide whether to explain that a knock-knock joke has to have a play on words to be funny or to just grin when "Who's there?" is answered with "Dog. Get it? There's a dog at the door."
Humor plays an important role in our house. It's how we get through the tough days and how we exercise our brains. It's how we embarrass our teenager and make our eight-year-old laugh so hard he falls off of his chair. It's not unusual to sit at our dinner table and hear everyone chime in to exhaust the pun-potential of a single word. (Egg-axctly. How did you like that yolk? Cracked you up did it? Shell I come up with another one? Aww, that was a cheep shot.)
Lately, humor gives me a glimpse at the personalities the kids are developing all on their own and provides me with an entirely new way of relating to them. My freshman-in-high-school daughter, who like Allison's son talks more to Facebook than she talks to me, is testing the waters with a more adult sense of humor.
As we were driving in the car the other day, she was reading me the one-liners she keeps on her iPod Touch. Most of them were mildly amusing and we laughed together. Then she stopped talking, looked sideways at me and seemed to make a decision to try out the next one. Beginning by telling me it was gross and sort of dumb, she took a deep breath and said really fast, "If a quiz is quizzical, then what are tests?"
It took me a minute. Not to get the joke, but to decide how to react. I wasn't even sure she understood it. Did she understand it? What did it mean if she understood it? What happens to our tenuous mother-daughter bond if I ask her if she gets it? What am I saying to her if I laugh?
So....I laughed. I seemed to have passed some sort of test because then she began talking to me about friends and schools and boys in a way she hadn't in a very long time. In acknowledging that she's ready to tell semi-dirty jokes, I acknowledged she's becoming more of an adult and gained her respect in doing so.
My eight-year-old son's sense of humor is growing, too. His is both a little wryer and a little more ridiculous. Recently, I was having a rough day and he said something nice to cheer me up. "Thank you honey," I said, "That's very sweet of you."
He looked at me, grinned and shot back, "That's why they call me honey."
All that was missing was the wink, the finger gun and the tongue cluck. It was a very Quagmire moment, a moment in which I could see him in the not-too-distant-future using his charm to attract girls.
Of course, the fart humor and burp jokes aren't likely to end anytime soon with boys in the house, but I'm even enjoying the fact that our 7-month-old has joined in with his own brand of burp joke. He's learned to make a growling, belch-like sound anytime somebody (usually his brother) burps and it's hilarious, mostly because the baby knows it's funny.
Just for today, I'll set aside the craziness of "momming." I'll not worry about planning vacations or fuss about grades. Today, instead of feeling a growing sense of horror or dismay at all that has to be done, I celebrate the growing sense of humor in my house. Maybe I'll even manage to spit milk out my nose. They'll love that.