My family of four went out for lunch the other day to celebrate a special occasion and we sat outside on the patio. Just one other table outside was occupied and they were a bit of a ways apart from us so it was almost like we had the place to ourselves. It meant we could relax a little and while the children still had to use their manners, it didn’t necessarily have to be their very best manners.
To pass the time while we waited for our meals, and to distract them from the noticing the slight chill that was in the air, I told the children that the parents would say a word and the kids would have to reply with a rhyming word that was funny.
It descended into potty humour very quickly but hey, I was thinking on my feet and it ended up having us all in stitches.
“Pot” said my husband.
Oh, the fits of giggles when my daughter replied “Snot!”
“Smart” I said.
Of course you can guess pretty easily how they replied.
“I’m not playing anymore,” declared my eight-year-old. “You’re just trying to get us in trouble.”
That wasn’t the intention at all, but it is kind of funny to know the kids think they’ll get in trouble for saying “poop” or “vomit” or “booger”.
Nevertheless, it was a fun way to spend 10 minutes. The conversation shifted from our funny rhyming word game (that we’ll totally play again) to the possibility of a vacation at some point in the next year or so. We’ve never had a proper family vacation for one reason or another but that may be able to change one of these days so we’ve been dreaming up places to visit.
My best friend lives in Whitehorse so half-jokingly I suggested we go to the Yukon in the winter.
“We could go ice fishing and see the northern lights!” I suggested, intentionally neglecting just how cold it gets up north in the winter.
“You mean the Aurora Borealis?” chirped my son, chuffed with his timely knowledge of random facts. He gets that trait from his father (both the knowledge of random facts and the bravado that comes with them).
“If we’re going anywhere, let’s go to Dubai,” he added, and not surprisingly as he’s always had an admiration of the Burj Khalifa.
“Or maybe to Great Wolf Lodge in Arizona,” chimed in my six-year-old, whose idea of a family trip is a little more in line with my own. Though if we were to go to Great Wolf Lodge, it would be the one in Grand Mound, Washington which makes way more sense to me because it’s significantly closer than the one in Arizona. I told her as much. Grand Mound is a viable option, though, as we’ve been talking all summer about heading south to a Mariners game anyway…
Baseball must have been on her mind when the following came out of her mouth.
“I know!” she said. “Let’s go to a boxing match! Why can’t we go to a boxing match?”
What an odd thing for a six-year-old girl to say.
My child is most definitely a sports fan but… boxing? That’s not really a sport we follow in our household so I’m not sure where she got the idea from.
But it’s what she said next that’s still got me laughing.
“Maybe we’ll catch a free tooth!”
Her comedic timing is exceptional.
She’s currently got her very first wiggly, jiggly, at-this-point-hanging-by-a-thread loose tooth and I suppose she was conflating catching foul balls at a Mariners game with punches being thrown and teeth going flying in boxing, but I’m still not sure why she came up with boxing or the idea that teeth would be launched all over the place for people to catch and even worse, to keep.
So, I apologize in advance to my daughter’s Grade 1 teacher this year. Odds are slim we’ll catch a fly ball at a Mariners game but if we do, she’ll no doubt bring it for show and tell. Odds are even more slim we’ll catch a free tooth at a boxing match but if we do, she’ll no doubt also bring that to show and tell.