all together now

because of timmy's work schedule, we rarely get to eat dinner together, except for his days off. man i miss him at dinner. i always took that major luxury for granted because growing up, we always ate dinner together as a family, and with tim's first couple jobs, or at least by the time we'd had ben, he was always home for dinner. and my boys eat sooooooooo dang slooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. like, i can nurse the baby, feed the baby non milk food, eat my own dinner, and clean up the kitchen, and they're still not done eating. there is a lot of coaching/reminding to eat your dinner. i usually try to stay at the table with them, because if i get up, they get up.

but tonight we were all together. john paul was in a good mood in his high chair, happily gobbling bites of avocado and smiling at the silliness of his family. i mostly sat back and watched it all.

the boys were telling jokes. oh, the joke telling. i think this a normal stage of kid development, but they're very much in the phase of telling jokes that rarely make sense and then laughing hysterically at each other (or themselves), only reinforcing their poor joke telling.

tim has this amusing-because-it's-so-bad habit of making up jokes that he formulates out loud, making the punchline either really obvious because you've heard the whole thought process or totally mind boggling that that's the punchline after all the puzzling and confusion. tonight it was, as i said, after much formulation, "what do you call a sleepy man who has eaten a spicy steak?....... a flamin' yawn." but to get to that punchline.... oh how i love that man. he also has a real gem about a "meanderin' orange".

this "joke" set max off on a whole series of joke/riddles. "what do you call a clock that doesn't tick?" ben figured him out from the start, " a tickless clock". "a barkless dog". "a bounceless ball". to which each time, max marveled, "man ben, you are so smart." with tim present to exchange amused looks, what would normally be kind of annoying after the 5th "joke" is endearing and cute.

tim then offered, "what do you call a girl turtle?........... shelly. " ben countered, "what do you call a female triceratops?................ HORNY!" tim and i both laughed heartily. then he said, "or hornTy if you want."

laughing at kids jokes is a dangerous thing. i often genuinely laugh at the completely nonsensical ones because they catch me off guard, but then that makes them think they make sense and they follow the same miscalculated joke equation over and over again, wondering why they are no longer garnering laughs.

i love my guys. i love them all so much easier when we are all together.

yah, i know this is pretty choppy, but you get what you get and.... i'm tryin'.