Temporary? Insanity

I decided I could use a few laughs this evening. Here are a few of my favourites.

1) Little Jacob had a hard time getting use to a new baby in the house. Coming out of his bedroom talking rather loud and being told to be quiet, the baby is asleep, he very seriously said, “Well ya’ll better be quiet, cause my foot`s asleep.”

2) One summer evening during a violent thunderstorm a mother was tucking her small boy into bed. She was about to turn off the light when he asked with a tremor in his voice, “Mommy, will you sleep with me tonight?” The mother smiled and gave him a reassuring hug. “I can’t, dear,” she said. “I have to sleep in Daddy’s room.” A long silence was broken at last by his shaky little voice: “The big sissy.”

3) A little boy opened the big and old family Bible with fascination, and looked at the old pages as he turned them. Suddenly, something fell out of the Bible, and he picked it up and looked at it closely. It was an old leaf from a tree that had been pressed in between the pages. “Momma, look what I found!” the boy called out. “What have you got there, dear?” his mother asked. With astonishment in the young boy’s voice, he answered: “I think it’s Adam’s suit!”

4) We had spent the day moving from our farmhouse into our new house in town. Very early the next morning, our 3 1/2 -year-old ran into our bedroom to wake us up. I dressed him and told him to play in the yard and to quit bothering us. About 20 minutes later, he came running back. “Mommy! Mommy!” he exclaimed, “everybody has doorbells – and they all work!”

5) Ever notice how a 4-year-old’s voice is louder than 200 adult voices? Several years ago, I returned home from a trip just when a storm hit, with crashing thunder and severe lightning. As I came into my bedroom about 2a.m., I found my two children in bed with my wife, Karey, apparently scared by the loud storm. I resigned myself to sleep in the guest bedroom that night. The next day, I talked to the children, and explained that it was OK to sleep with Mom when the storm was bad, but when I was expected home, please don’t sleep with Mom that night. They said OK. After my next trip several weeks later, Karey and the children picked me up in the terminal at the appointed time. Since the plane was late, everyone had come into the terminal to wait for my plane’s arrival, along with hundreds of other folks waiting for their arriving passengers. As I entered the waiting area, my son saw me, and came running shouting, “Hi, Dad! I’ve got some good news!” As I waved back, I said loudly, “What’s the good news?” “Nobody slept with Mommy while you were away this time!” Alex shouted. The airport became very quiet, as everyone in the waiting area looked at Alex, then turned to me, and then searched the rest of the area to see if they could figure out exactly who his Mom was.

6) A 5-year-old and a 4-year-old are upstairs in their bedroom. “You know what?”, says the 5-year-old, “I think it’s about time we start swearing.” The 4-year-old nods his head in approval. The 5-year-old continues, “When we go downstairs for breakfast I’m gonna say ‘hell,’ and you say ‘ass’, OK?” The 4-year-old agrees with enthusiasm. The mother walks into the kitchen and asks the 5-year-old what he wants for breakfast “Awe hell Mom, I guess I’ll have some Cheerios.” WHACK! He flies out of his chair, gets up, and runs upstairs crying his eyes out. The Mom looks at the 4-year-old and asks with a stern voice, “And what do YOU want for breakfast, young man?” “I don’t know,” he blubbers, ” but you can bet your ass it won’t be Cheerios.”

7) While working for an organization that delivers lunches to elderly shut-ins, I used to take my four-year-old daughter on my afternoon rounds. She was unfailingly intrigued by the various appliances of old age, particularly the canes, walkers and wheelchairs. One day I found her staring at a pair of false teeth soaking in a glass. As I braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions, she merely turned and whispered, “The tooth fairy will never believe this!”

8) My kindergarten-aged daughter suddenly announced just before school that she needed to take a clean tee shirt to class. She told us the teacher was going to iron an anti-drug message on it. My wife frantically swept through my daughter’s room, finding nothing usable but one tee shirt that already had something printed on one side. She sent it off to school with my daughter. That afternoon, my daughter returned and happily showed off her shirt. On one side it said, “Families are Forever.” And on the other, “Be Smart, Don’t Start.”

9) When my wife quit work to take care of our new baby daughter, countless hours of peek-a-boo and other games slowly took their toll. One evening she smacked her bare toes on the corner of a dresser and, grabbing her foot, sank to the floor. I rushed to her side and asked where it hurt. She looked at me through tear-filled eyes and managed to moan, “It’s the piggy that ate roast beef.”

10) Finding one of her students making faces at others on the playground, Ms. Smith stopped to gently reprove the child. Smiling sweetly, the Sunday School teacher said, “Bobby, when I was a child, I was told that if I made ugly faces, it would freeze and I would stay like that.” Bobby looked up and replied, “Well, Ms. Smith, you can’t say you weren’t warned.”

11) At our Mother/Daughter banquet the pastor’s wife asked for of the daughters to come forward to share what their mother has taught them. She choose my 14-year-old daughter and as I sat their reviewing all the wonderful things I taught her, she said, “My mom taught me to love my body now, because I’m going to hate it when I’m 40.”

12) My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, “Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?” I mentally polished my halo while I asked, “No, how are we alike?” “You’re both old,” he replied.

13) To close each day’s activities in summer and on holidays in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World at Lake Buena Vista, Fla., a huge fireworks display lights up the sky. One night I noticed a small boy about three years old perched on his father’s shoulder. The child sat mesmerized, aware only of what was exploding in the heavens. When the fireworks were over, the little boy looked up into the sky again and said, “Thank you, God.”

Thank you indeed.