Don't Forget the Punch Line

I wish I could record every single funny things my kids say, but it requires an unnatural combination of :

* my being at the computer ready to record it
* at a time when my brain is actually engaged.

Unfortunately, the older I get, and the older my kids get, the less that either of those things happens, and the less frequently their intersection actually occurs.

This morning is an exception. It is a Saturday morning, and yes, we were ALL awake by 7:15 a.m., thanks to the aforementioned children.

At one point my husband off-handedly asked if I'd noticed that our car doors don't squeak anymore. (We have automatically engaging shoulder-belts, and when they moved along their track they were pretty noisy.) I had definitely noticed."YES! Thank you! It's amazing!"

Somehow, that made my 8-year-old start thinking about our car, and he commented that we need a new car. Why, we ask? He says that if we have a new baby boy or girl, then "she" won't have anywhere to sit!!!

(And for all ye suddenly curious folks, this is NOT an announcement, just the weird musings of an 8-year-old.)

He says we need to get a 12-passenger van so that we can have 12 kids and two adults. I explained that 12-passengers means 10 kids and two adults. "OK, he said, let's do that. We'll get a van like that and have 10 kids in our family."

Then I told him that they do MAKE 15-passenger vans, which would mean 13 kids and two adults. He got pretty excited and said, "Oh, yeah! Let's do THAT instead!" My husband commented that it sounded like a lot of work (DOESN'T it sound like a lot of work? Yikes!)

But the innocent child replied with, "Really? How much would it cost?" We laughed a little as we realized he was thinking only of the cost of the van and not the labor-cost of having 13 kids.

We jokingly pointed out that if we did have a car that big (assuming of course that we don't have a family that big) then we could be the eternally-designated pick-up-everyone-who-needs-rides family, and the take-all-the-scouts-to-camp family. It would be great!

Well, the way we said it reminded him of a line in Night at the Museum 2, so he immediately answered our comment with, "This is the National Museum of don't-touch-that-thing-in-front-of-you." I laughed at the randomness of the conversational transition, and then he started performing for us -- spinning, contorting, and throwing himself around the room in a wonderful exhibition of what he thought was breakdancing. I laughed some more (a lot more) and told him that I can't wait for my twin brothers to get reacquainted with him.

When everything had died down a little, he suggested that it would be fun to make a movie of our family. We could do lots of funny things, and (excitedly) "I could be the punch line."

And as I thought about it, I realized that EVERY DAY he says things or does things that make me laugh. Maybe part of the reason this particular child was sent to my family was to ensure that I WOULD laugh every day.

So I laughed hysterically and agreed with him. "Yes, you COULD be the punch line. You could definitely BE the punch line."

Maybe every family needs a punch line or two or more. But you might want to consider a 15-passenger van to transport all of them.