funny

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Teaching My Son To Be Funny And Interesting, Because It Matters

October 20, 2012 at 3:25 pm , by 

23 months.

If you’re born an American male, then there is a subtle pressure for you to be funny and interesting. A famous quote by Marilyn Monroe backs this up:

“If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything.”

Well said.

When my wife and I randomly met in line at a taping for a concert in Nashville on October 5, 2006, I didn’t capture her attention by my looks.

Instead, I did it through my eccentric charm; which largely consists of telling off-beat real life stories, laced in deadpan humor, illustrated with dramatic hand motions which I subconsciously learned from my Italian grandfather while growing up.

Why is it that the majority of comedians and writers throughout history have been and still are men?

Because we sort of have to be both funny and interesting. I believe it’s part of survival of the fittest for men, in particular.

So now after 6 years of meeting my wife, we are raising a nearly 2 year-old son.

A son who will grow up needing to be both interesting and funny.

Needless to say, it is my role as the dad to teach him to become these things. The tricky part is making sure he’s not obnoxious instead.

A person who is too interesting is in danger of becoming nerdy and boring.

A person who is too funny is in danger of become distant and insensitive.

My son Jack has proven to me that he has the funny gene. So right now, I’m starting to be proactive in helping him direct his natural talent.

I don’t want Jack to be the little boy who thinks he’s funny just because certain people laugh when he does something they think is cute. For example, when a little boy goes up to strangers and says, “Hi!”

After the stranger replies, the boy becomes a broken record in an attempt to obtain a collection of repeat laughs: “Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!…”

That’s the worst.

The most important part of being interesting and funny is the timing and theatrics of the delivery.

I can see how even at just 23 months-old, when Jack does something funny like stick his thumb in applesauce, then look up at his Mommy and I and say, “Oh no!” like it’s some kind of tragic accident with a worried look on his face, he waits for us to laugh before he does.

That’s comedy in the making.

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Stuff My 23 Month-Old Toddler Son Says

October 18, 2012 at 11:08 pm , by 

23 months.

Makeshift sentences are a new discovery.

Gone are the days of simple exclamations like “Mine!” and “More! More!”

My son is now finding a way to utilize his favorite dozen or so words in basically any and every situation.

Ultimately, according to Jack, things are either sleepy, sad, biting, or crashing.

Yesterday morning it was “Ahh! Train bite!”

I turned around to see him in his car seat, sticking his finger in Percy the Train’s face.

(Thanks to Jack’s on-again/off-again biting bouts with his friend Sophie, he knows the word “bite” pretty well.)

And if he can’t evoke fake sympathy from me in an attempt to pretend a human being bit him, he figures a Thomas & Friends metal die-cast train is just as capable of biting him instead.

“Oh no! Crash!”

That’s what I hear on a daily basis from the back seat when we’re driving home from daycare. I’ll look up in the distance and see a car for sale, parked in someone’s yard.

Apparently, if a car is not on the road, it has crashed, and it worries Jack.

Of course, since he’s obsessed with his toy vehicles, I’m pretty sure he’s more concerned with the well-being of the cars themselves, not the actual people inside of them.

This morning when Jack was helping me check my Facebook, he saw a picture of the daughter of a college friend named Sara Hilton.

The picture was of little Alaina playing in the leaves and it had earned dozens of “likes.”

Jack’s response: “Oh no! Crash!”

My assumption is that because A) he couldn’t really see her legs and B) there were leaves in the air, not on the ground, he thought that Alaina had “crashed” in the leaves.

Obviously, it’s quite a stretch to say that someone crashes when they’re actually playing in the leaves, but for the sake of my son learning how to use the English language, I’ll accept his perception of the event.

This would explain why when Jack’s toys are constantly either sleepy, sad, biting each other, or crashing.

But I know that eventually, more verbs and emotions will come into play. As for now, he has to work with what he’s got.

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And The Award For “World’s Best Father” Goes To Dave Engledow…

September 27, 2012 at 11:20 pm , by 

22 months.

We modern dads can be a sensitive crowd, as learned from this year’s Huggies fiasco. It comes down to the fact we don’t want to portrayed as the idiots that sitcoms and commercials have made us look like throughout recent decades.

I have pointed out several times by now the cliche about men freaking out when changing their kid’s diaper. It’s so annoying to see another token image of a goofball dad holding his nose or making a theatrical face while taking care of “diaper doody.”

Unless, that image is part of Dave Engledow’s “World’s Best Father” photo series, which is currently buzzing on the Internet. (Let’s be honest- that’s why I’m writing about it now.)

His photos poke fun at negative stereotypes of dads. In other words, he’s unknowingly supporting my “Non-Doofus Dad Awareness” cause by showing the world hilarious, over-the-top examples of how not to do this thing called fatherhood.

Engledow explains it this way on his Kickstarter project page which he set up to fund the World’s Best Father 2013 Calendar:

“The character I portray in this series is intended to be a parody of the father I hope I never become–distracted, self-absorbed, neglectful, clueless, or even occasionally overbearing.

I’ve always used humor as a way to deal with my personal fears and neuroses, and in many ways these images are often an attempt to do just that–to illustrate humorously the fears that I and, as I’ve learned, many other new fathers have about fatherhood”

Without a doubt, this is my kind of guy.

I have a feeling that like me, he would mock, not celebrate, the idea of a “Dadchelor Party.”

One of my favorites of Engledow’s “World’s Best Father” series portrays him as an overzealous dad/coach who is training his toddler daughter to become an Olympic diver: He is coercing her into jumping off the mantle into a small wading pool on the living room floor.

Another shows Engledow struggling to win an arm wrestling contest with his young daughter.

Some parents these days seem to nearly beg for our attention when it comes to pictures and status updates about what’s going on with their kids.

After you check out more of Engledow’s pictures, it becomes clear that he doesn’t have to beg for any of our attention. He already has it.

In case you missed that first hyperlink to transport you to his web page, featuring his pictures, here it is again:

World’s Best Father 2013 Calendar

Image: Engledow Art Photography.

 

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My Son’s Delicious “Beans And Rice Juice” Recipe

September 21, 2012 at 11:20 pm , by 

22 months.

Jack’s “Beans and Rice Juice”

Ingredients: water, black beans, rice

Directions: Add one toddler-sized handful of black beans to a sippy cup full of water. Stir by hand. Next, add  one toddler-sized handful of rice. Again, stir by hand. Bottoms up!

I suppose the word “delicious” is a bit relative, especially when talking about my 22 month-old son’s sense of good taste.

Go ahead, don’t be shy. It’s okay to save these pictures on Pinterest to share in your “Recipes I Need To Try” folder.

The obvious irony in my son drinking this homebrew is that, like most toddlers, he won’t just eat anything.

In fact, he will only eat certain things.

Let’s see, there’s Annie’s Homegrown Classic Macaroni & Cheese, bananas, prunes, Cheerios, and of course, beans and rice.

As the home video below demonstrates, Jack very willingly drank his “Beans and Rice Juice.”

I loved how he felt the need to commit to drinking his new invention.

It reminds me of when my sister and I were kids in the late Eighties. Nearly every weekend, our Italian grandfather would take us and our parents out to a Southern steakhouse called Quincy’s, “home of the big fat yeast roll.”

When we were finished eating, we would get bored as we were waiting on the adults to finish.

So I would whip up a fancy concoction in my water glass, consisting of salt, pepper, ketchup, lemons, Worcestershire sauce, Heinz 57, A1, and any another free condiment I had easy access to.

“I’ll give you 5 Airheads if you drink a swallow of this,” I would tell my sister.

And she would.  Airheads candy was evidently a rare commodity for a 6 year-old girl.

But as far as my son drinking “Beans and Rice Juice,” there is no bribing being done here.

He’s just being a cool, weird, adventurous little boy.

 

 

 

Leave a comment Posted on Nostalgia, parenting

Mall Toddlers: My Idea For A Straight-To-DVD Kids Movie

September 17, 2012 at 11:59 pm , by 

22 months.

So maybe the “In Theaters March 2013″ part is just wishful thinking. Hey, I’ll settle for straight-to-DVD.

It’s not easy reuniting your toddler with his two best friends from daycare for weekend plans. You’re dealing with three different napping schedules… enough said.

The plan was for Jack, Henry, and Sophie to hang out at a park playground, but then a random thunderstorm showed up.

By 3:45 on a Sunday afternoon, it was difficult to justify paying to get into one of those indoor playgrounds, knowing we would all just need to get our kids home for dinner after about an hour and a half anyway.

So by default, the mall became our play date destination.

I admit, I really had no expectations on how things would go. I mean, normally, I would have low expectations in regards to meeting fellow parents and their kids at a place I haven’t really tried out myself.

Turns out, it was a good gamble. Our German-looking kids found plenty of activities to keep themselves entertained.

All we had to do was follow them around and keep up with them like a camera crew on any given TLC reality show.

The more we chased them, though, the less necessary I felt. I don’t mean that in a sad way, though.

Instead, I could easily imagine it like some straight-to-DVD movie about three toddlers who take over the mall after hours.

Like all those goofy Air Bud movies, the toddlers would have computer-animated mouths and they would talk like adults.

So it would sort of be like Look Who’s Talking meets Air Bud if Air Bud revolved around toddlers instead of athletic dogs.

I suppose the plot line would involve a kooky Croatian villain named Mr. Stincovic who coincidentally happens to sneak into the mall at the same time in order to sabotage Santa’s upcoming visit the next day, by bringing in potato sacks full of skunks.

Does that sound lame enough for a straight-to-DVD kids movie? It doesn’t take much.

In the likeness of Home Alone, the three toddlers would use the mall itself to torture Mr. Stincovic with booby trapped obstacles:

They would pour out Dippin’ Dots in a trail leading from the food court to the carousel, which happens to be running at all times, unmanned.

Once Mr. Stincovic, who goes by “Mr. Stinky” for short,as if the pun wasn’t obvious enough for 4 year-old viewers, lands conveniently on the carousel horse, Henry would pull the lever from “slow” to “turbo power,” causing Mr. Stinky to fly up into the rafters.

There, Mr. Stinky is pestered by a dozen remote controlled mini-helicopters until either A) the police arrive or B) he decides not to sabotage Santa’s visit, but instead becomes an elf, as Mr. Stinky learns the true meaning of Christmas.

So yeah, that’s pretty much what Mall Toddlers would consist of. You would be able to find it the very bottom selection of DVD’s on the Redbox panel screen.

Or instead of waiting for the anticipated world-wide release of Mall Toddlers, you could just check out some more pictures of when Jack, Henry, and Sophie took over the mall. Click here to check them out on The Dadabase‘s Facebook wall.