It Really Does Take a Village

Before you have kids you have all these plans, all the things you're going to tell them and teach them about the world.

J, since we're not very religious: "I'm going to teach our kids to say gesundheit instead of bless you."
Me: "Great idea honey! (I love foreign languages.) I'm going to read and sing to our kids in Spanish and Italian all the time! And maybe French too, though my pronunciation sucks, but I'll get better! I'll take a refresher course!"

And then you have kids. And somewhere between smelling all wets spots "Is that pee? Why yes it is" and kissing invisible boo-boos and cursing yourself for once again for neglecting to put Elmo Band-Aids on the shopping list, well, you forget a few of them along the way.

That's where just being out in the world becomes handy.

A few months back a car full of teenagers taught the Cracker that if you bend your arm at the elbow, make a fist pointed towards the sky and pump it that some truckers will honk for you.

We live and breath trucks...how could I have forgotten this one?


At school on Tuesday they husked corn. Very cool! (And then it was the only part of snack, Cracker's favorite part of school, that he wouldn't eat. No surprise...my veggie boy has always been skeptical of corn. He eats pretty much every other yellow food including peppers. Eating corn no longer tops my list of concerns.)


So yesterday morning I'm loading the dishwasher and the Cracker is chatting away a mile a minute and I'm not even kind of listening. I finish up and realize that he cannot stop laughing. Instead of interrupting I pretend to keep on working and do a little eavesdropping.

"Knock knock. Whose dere? A snik! (snake) Who? A SNIK FALL DOWN! BAWHAHAHAHA!"

So it's the worst knock-knock joke ever, but it's totally my favorite.

(In case you can't feel it, my heart is melting. I stupidly thought that knock-knock jokes weren't funny until at least 4. I still have so much to learn.)

The Cracker's other favorites which he thinks are almost as funny:

"Knock knock. Whose dere? MEEE!!!"
"Knock knock. Whose dere? Apple! Who? Dis apple need a bath!"

(The last one I know is an original...he made it up while I was slicing apples.)


This school thing is going to be really good for us.


(Anyone out there have a good knock-knock joke for me?)