When Not To Laugh

Here's the thing about parenthood... there are times to laugh and times when it's better not too. Unfortunately, God has made children little comedians and it's incredibly hard not to laugh, even when you know that if you do, you'll only encourage an unwanted behavior.

Some fun examples from recent William history:

1) I took him out to lunch and while he's terrific out at restaurants, if he finishes eating way before you, it is best to have a toy on hand so that he doesn't become difficult. This day, I had not prepared for some reason. So upon announcing, "momma I all done! Please may I have get down?" (this is how he says may I please get down) I said, "no, you will wait until mom is finished." He then decided that it might be fun to try pouring his left over milk into my milk cup. Sensing danger (or at least a table full of milk), I said, "William, put your glass down and give mommy back her cup!" To which he replied, "ummmm... no thanks." It was the thanks that killed me. Here's my son, misbehaving, yet deciding to have manners while he does it! This is a new trend actually. I tell him to take a nap, stop hitting the dog, sit still in his seat, finish his food, take a timeout, etc and the most common response is "ummmm...no thanks." Like I'm offering him tea or something! I usually have to turn away and fake some kind of cough/hiccup/choking combination because his sincerity and politeness are just too funny for words. What freakin' kid says "no thanks" when their parent scolds them?

2) Okay, swearing is NOT funny, seriously... but sometimes words that are just horrid coming out of an adults mouth are just too incongruous from a toddler's to be anything but funny. Particularly, when you have no idea you've sworn until the little parrot at your side reminds you. Two weeks ago I was cleaning up William's play room, muttering to myself under my breath, exhausted from being pregnant and I said (and I swear it was under my breath), "this house is a f@!#ing mess". I hear the quietest little voice (as he's immitating my tone as well), say "yeah... house f@!#ing mess". Aaaaggggh! I panicked and then ran to the bathroom to keep from laughing. Thank god my "don't make a big deal of it" approach worked... he's never said it again. Whew! Crisis avoided.

3) My son is terrific at using utensils. Seriously. If you put chicken, rice and peas in a bowl and he only wants peas... he can fish them out. However, he often just does not want to use them, so he feigns incompetence. On night, Mike and I had made breakfast for dinner (it sounded good to my pregnant belly) and William wanted desperately to eat his scrambled eggs and strawberries with his hands. It seems like every second bite Mike and I were saying, "use your fork!". So at one point, I look over just in time to see him pick up his fork, pick up some egg with his hand and carefully work the egg onto the tines of the fork and then it eat it off the fork. He then caught me looking at him and the raised eyebrow/smirky/self-satisfied look he gave me which seemed to say ("what? i used the fork, right?") was so damn funny that Mike and I caught each others eye and broke into a cacophony of fake coughing and spluttering. It totally did not work... he knew we were laughing, laughed with us and then did it again. I pick my battles with him and for this one, I surrendered. It just wasn't worth it that night.