I yelled upstairs for Bricker Jr to come down and put a casserole dish into the oven to reheat for dinner. He yells back that it’ll be five minutes. Seeking to motivate him (he’s a history buff) I said, “OK, five minutes, no more, or I’ll be on you like you were a French Huguenot and I work for Catherine de Medici!”
A moment later he appears at the stairwell with a serious expression and says, totally deadpan, “I know you’re joking, but Papito: people died.” He pauses for effect.
Your kid is awesome. But I am posting, of course, to share my own anecdote.
Last year I was putting my daughter in her car seat after preschool. I accidentally bonked her head on the roof of the car. “Ow, Daddy!” she said, grinning. “You made me die! I’m dead!”
It had been a long day. “Honey,” I said, “Don’t joke about death like that. Death makes people sad, and jokes should make people happy.”
“Okay. I love you!”
“Oh, I love you too!” I said. “See, that makes me happy!”
“I was joking.”
The Smaller Girl has been having a big month. All our kids get to go on the school trip to China when they’re in Grade 6. This was her year. Coincidentally at nearly the same time it was her birthday and I took her to Sydney…and just before we left one of her friends randomly invited her to go to he Royal Melbourne Show, which is kinda big, this time of year.
So when she hears the last of these, the Taller Girl puts on a dramatic expression. “She gets to go to the Show! and she gets to go to Sydney! And she gets to go to China!” tosses head artistically “And you claim you don’t have a favourite child!”
I look at her in vague puzzlement. “You know, I don’t think that I did claim…”
(It’s only funny because she thought it hilarious, of course)
Scene: small restaurant bathroom. Me at the urinal, my then-4-year-old son in the stall, so we can’t see each other.
Boy: Dad, are we in a bathroom?
Me: uh, yeah. What’s up?
Boy: so we can use bathroom words? (Our house word for words not appropriate in public)
Me, smiling curiously: Yesssss…
Boy: :: pauses, takes a long, deep inhale:: penispenispenispenispenispenispenispenispenis…PENIS!!!
Me: ::loses it::
I was out cycling with my, then three years old, niece. As we’re going through the harbour I warned not to go to close to edge because she might fall in the ocean. As a response I got a lovely little poem told in a sing-songy voice:
Uncle at the harbour
He got too close to the edge
He fell in the ocean
He can’t get up
He drowns I have to go home alone
The way she emphasized that last line implied her having to go home by herself was the real tragedy.
My 3-year old daughter somehow opened the window by her car seat, and was waving her Woody doll (Toy Story) outside. I made her stop, and she said, “Say goodbye to the open road, Woody.”