Yesterday, my kids had Hip Hop lessons at school. This interesting tidbit came out at dinner, after my kids pushed away their bowls of Thai soup and looked around for their favourite food group: chicken nuggets.
While I was slurping the coconut milk out of their rice, Vivian and William treated us to a Hip Hop demo.
Vivian was first to leap out of her chair (which she usually falls off of twice during dinner). She started showing us various moves, many of which share names with kitchen items, like the corkscrew and the coffee grinder.
“Mom, come do a teddy bear stand beside me,” Vivian said, inverted.
I used my teeth to sieve more rice and swallowed some coconut milk. Then I said this:
“Then do one in the living room,” Vivian suggested.
“No, thanks.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m good at hurting myself when I do stupid things,” I said.
“Don’t say stupid, Mom.”
“Sorry.” I was unaware that I’d lost whatever authority I believed I possessed.
My husband explained, “Mommy hurt herself playing volleyball in a Santa hat.” Like we needed to hear that story again.
Vivian moonwalked back to her seat, and I slid the bowls of Thai soup rice back to the kids.
“Look,” I said, “I just don’t want to do a teddy bear stand tonight.”
“We’re supposed to practice them on our bed,” William said, surprising us by keeping the conversation on topic.
“On your bed?” I asked. My brain fast-forwarded to visions of broken lamps and collar bones.
“Yes, it’s soft,” William said. He jumped down from his chair. “Watch me do some Hip Hop.” He shuffled to some open space, and did some running-man thing.
Then he wiped out. As in a feet-in-air-butt-meets-the-floor spill.
Insert laughter. Lots of it. At William.
“And what move would that be?” my husband asked.
William picked himself off the tile and uttered the refrain used by all children whose parents laugh at them: “It’s not funny.”
But, darling, it is.
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It’s Whiteboard Wednesday, so I ask:
What bizarre things have you heard or said recently?
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(Happy Birthday, Mom. I didn’t send you a card again. But thank you a thousand times for teaching me to laugh at my kids. I learned from a master!)
When you publish the Ironic Mom anthology place this post near the beginning as it sums up just about everything you could ever want to communicate about what you do! If you were a movie, this simple dinner could be the opening scene. As you all laugh at the boy, you longingly look up and away, and how did we all end up here…
Okay, Clay, you’ve just worked your way into the Acknowledgments section. Hope you plan on living to be a nonagenarian to see it…
Good one Leanne….thanks for always being you….how many laughs have we had together!!!
Love you to bits,
mom
Enough laughs to shed some tears, Grandpa-style! Love you too…
So hip hop is the new polka. I remember learning to polka in school. Which has come in handy a lot.
You learned to polka? Wow. Either your school was more progressive than mine…or less. Not sure we learned any dances. I was, however, an expert of the side-to-side shuffle in Junior High.
My family likes the movie “Elf.” Probably a little too much. But that’s not the point.
The point is, anytime anyone gets frustrated or feels made fun of around the Gardner house, whenever a pout appears or a lower lip protrudes, we say the following: “He’s an angry elf.” (sometimes we use Will Ferrell’s voice. Adding insult to injury, of course.)
That’s what I picture when I conjur up William telling you not to laugh at him. In my head, he looks like one angry elf.
Me? I would have been wetting my pants. Which is also not a good thing to do on the ceramic tile floor.
But it’s far better than doing the Teddy Bear.
Julie, you had me laughing at Will Ferrell’s voice. Then your last line had me howling. Our families would get along just fine, indeed.
just fair warning from one who’s been there, okay, go ahead, laugh at your kids…..soon they will return the favor. Love ya
Too true, Auntie D. They howled at C the other day when he bonked his head on the car door. Love you too!
You can’t win!
Theo now says tee eee, which translates as stinkee, for poo.
THANKS FOR SHARING HARRIET.
I love how you refer to yourself in third person….and all caps.
My son is 22 months old and he recently starting pointing at things and saying,” “Funny, funny.”
Today he was pointing at me and saying, “Funny Mommy, funny.” I am not sure if he is laughing at me or with me:)
Hilarious. They’re learning early these, aren’t they!
Haha! The Santa hat story sounds funny . . .
I tried to do a little hip hop during what was normally my conditioning class last fall (my regular instructor had broken her foot or something, and a hip-hop expert was there instead). I was dismally bad at it. =) But it looks like your kids are enjoying it.
The Santa hat is a bit embarrassing. Maybe another blog…
You’re braver than me: I can barely walk in public, let alone try to follow some coordinated dance moves!
i cant help but not share this one:
last night.. we had tacos..soft tacos.. my 3yrold was fascinated by this process of making tacos and how we eat them…
well while i was ‘enjoying’ my taco my son announced “look!! mommy is eating a penis!!!”
aparently everything in a ‘tube’ form resembles a penis.. and of course after my husband spit his food out in laughter he had to add in ‘well she doesnt do that very often!’
-arse.