Fart Powder

A visiting Opa reads "Fart Powder" to a grandson's delight.

Am I A Mutant, Or What!

Burp Starts With a B!

"Book starts with a b!"  "So does bat!" "And ball ... butterfly ... blueberries ... bingo ... barn ... bread ... badger ... bee (giggle - bee starts with a b - get it, papa?) ... bottle ... bubble ... bugs..." 

JK loves the alphabet.  He will say a number of words that all start with the same letter, then ask us (especially his big sister) to participate and help out when he can't think of any new words.  After we have brainstormed some more words, we will go on to other tasks, later hearing JK shout from elsewhere in the house (or yard or in the car) things like "Burp starts with a b!"  This even happens when he is using the necessary (see next post).  Imagine being with him in a public washroom when he shouts out, "Poop starts with a p!"

Fart Smellers

Ah, the blissful sound at the end of the day of ... farting?  Our oldest Sprout somehow got her hands on a whoopee cushion and now both Sprouts are running around the living room, blowing up then sitting on the cushion making, of course, farting sounds.  And amidst these sounds is mingled the best sound in the world: children's laughter.

Lyrics of the Week: "BusyBusyBusy"

Picture this:  all of us sitting at the kitchen table watching Muppet shorts on YouTube, laughing at the various antics of puppets singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" and the Swedish chef cooking popcorn.  Laughter is definitely the best medicine, especially when administered in heaping spoonfuls by the Muppets.

It all started with a comment by my spouse: "We should play this song for (name not disclosed, but you know who you are as it starts with an "O" and ends with an "a").  The Sprouts were listening to and reading along with Sandra Boynton's "Philadelphia Chickens" this afternoon.  One of the songs is called "BusyBusyBusy", and has these lines in the song:

...we have to hurry to the left,
and then we hurry right
and we're talking every minute
as we hurry day and night
and we have to have our lunches
though we don't have time to chew...

A search for a song video led to another, then another, then another...and finally all of us after dinner huddled together in front of a laptop screen and giggling, with the littlest Sprout saying "Again! Again!"

For our dear teacher friend, we hope you enjoy this poor quality video version of the whole song "BusyBusyBusy":

I Need To Pee

I'm not going to begin writing a rant about our school's new daily schedule (and on top of that how every non-teaching time like recess is taken up by detentions and incomplete homework), mostly because I don't have the energy and I still have marking to do.  There is one thing, though, that irks me and I need to get it off my chest.

I. Need. To. Pee. 

There.  I said it.  There is no time to pee, or eat, or get prepared for the next lesson, or...

Sigh.

If only I had the sense of humour that Stuart McLean does:

Picture This

Three images today that stood out, all starring the littlest Sprout:

1. I went outside this morning to pick up strewn about garbage left by a very large, hungry bear (yet again!).  As I was putting it back in the bin, I heard a voice behind me asking "What are you doing, Papa?"  I turned to find my son wearing nothing but his underwear and two different coloured pair of Crocs on his feet. 
2. This afternoon, whilst getting a drink of water in the kitchen, I looked out the window to see my son outside stepping off the "Peeing Rock", having finished draining his bladder and trying to pull up his pants. 
3. Tonight, playing dress-up with his sister, JK comes downstairs wearing just a pair of gold sequin shorts, untidily tucked into his blue underwear.  "Look at me!", he cries.  Back upstairs he goes, then again downstairs wearing just blue underwear and a pair of butterfly wings.

Sorely needed laughter today...more to follow.

TV Quote

Yes, I like quotes! This one comes from a TV show The Mentalist that my spouse and I are watching on DVD (as I've mentioned before, we have no cable or satellite). This scene was a LOL moment for both of us:

Patrick: All you need is a basic understanding of the evolutionary psychology of women, rigorously and fearlessly applied. You gotta know what buttons to press.

Teresa: Like we're toasters.

Grace: Like men don't have buttons, too.

Patrick: Men are like toasters. Women... a little more like, uh, accordions. (Theresa and Grace walk away) (To Rigsby) I thought that was a compliment.

Another Family Quote...

EK to JK: "What ARE you doing? We DON'T blow our nose on Play-Doh!"

Family Quote of the Week

FK: "Papa, how do mustaches grow? Do they grow out of your nose?"

(No, I do not have a mustache. This is one of many questions from our very curious Sprout.)

Humour

There are different types of humour. There is sophisticated and witty humour written by Stephen Leacock, Garrison Keillor and Stuart McLean (and dare I say Calvin and Hobbes?). There is quirky humour a la Monty Python. There is silly humour like puns (such as the ones I put on the top of Math reviews which make students' eyes roll: What do you get when you cross a dinosaur and a pig? Jurassic Pork!) and those knock-knock jokes we as parents hear from our six year old in the backseat on the way to town (Knock, knock. Who's there? Tank. Tank who? You're very welcome.).

There is something infectious about laughter. We laugh a lot as a family, especially when Papa gets mocked for being old:

FK: I wish I knew more history.
Mama: You know who to talk to about history? Papa. He knows a lot about history.
FK: That's because he lived way back then.
(hilarious laughter ensues)

My students like to laugh a lot, too. A lot of students were away Friday, so I took what small class I had to the computer lab to google and answer questions raised during the week during lessons and discussions. After the real work was done, I told my students to go to http://www.multiplication.com/ and play some interactive math games. Now you might think that 12-15 year olds would balk at playing these less than mature games in a Xbox, Wii and Nintendo world. No, not on Friday. They were giggling and laughing at the antics of plucky penguins and grizzly wheelchair-bound grannies all the while solving multiplication problems. Who knew?

Then there are those times you don't know whether to laugh or to be annoyed. Those of you who know us know we live an long hour's drive north of the nearest metropolis town. As I was wheezing and huffing my way up a hill this morning, all the while muttering under my breath "There are no hills in ____, there are no hills in ___", along comes a red Chevy van. The driver pulls the van up beside me, rolls down the window, and with a large grin, asks, "You runnin' all the way to town or do you wanna a ride?"

Ha-Ha.