Tuesday, November 13, 2007

A pirate's life

At last, the public gets what the public demands. I present the AMEN family pirates:






Halloween was really fun this year. Abby was very much into it, and Ethan was hysterical. He was at his "along for the ride" best, and cracked us all up. He took his little pumpkin bucket and just wandered off after his sister. You want me to wear this goofy pirate hat? Eh, all right. Going to some strange door? Sure, why not? Someone opens it? Might as well go in. No? Okay, but I see I get candy--that's cool. Hey, you got any more? No? No problem, I'll just move along now. It was such a change from giving Abby a new experience. She's the type to want to know how far the walk will be, how many pieces of candy to expect, how many she would get to eat upon completion of the walk, and if she will have the option of changing clothes if her costume begins to annoy her. How these two children came from the same parents, I will never know.

Here are a couple of pictures of their trick or treating adventures:


You may notice that in Abby's pictures her mouth is in a funny shape--it's because she thinks she can't touch her lips to each other when she has on lipstick or it will come off. We're working on it. We're also working on Ethan's pirate "Argh!" which sounds more like a roar, but who's perfect?

Tonight, Abby asked me to tell her a "silly joke", and my mind went completely blank. I could not think of a single "What do ghosts eat?" or "What do you call a rhino in a swimming pool?" type of joke. Neither could Matt, so we went straight to the great crutch of our generation--the Internet. We found a couple that she liked, particularly: What is grey, has four feet, and goes up and down and up and down? An elephant on a trampoline. We found plenty of funny ones, but most were way over her head. She totally would not get why the chicken crossed the road, for example--irony and sarcasm are lost on her. So! I need some absurdly simple, funny, easy to remember jokes to teach her to aid in her apparently earnest quest to be her class humorist. Silly is the key--if it doesn't make her giggle uncontrollably, she isn't interested. Anybody got any ideas? Take away sarcasm and irony, and I'm powerless here. I need help!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Am I the first to respond or what?! Your post has been there for one hour; and here I am. I love the pictures of Abby and Ethan's Halloween costumes and their excursion as Pirates! How cute! 'Til next time...

Anonymous said...

My favorite...what do you call cheese that's not yours? NACHO CHEESE!!
Michelle

Gloria Brown said...

I suggest you buy a giant bag of laffy taffy. Seriously funny (groan) jokes that will be perfect for a Abby! And great chewey candy that will make your dentist love you!

Anonymous said...

How about this, what's black and white and red all over? The newspaper.

Anonymous said...

Love the Halloween pictures. How about knock-knock jokes?

Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Ash.
Ash who?
Bless you!

Jake's favorites are the banana and orange knock-knock joke and the boo hoo, you don't have to cry knock-knock joke.

Patty

Anonymous said...

Ok, here's one that Kenny taught you, Wendy, Lindsey, Kevan and Ryan- and you could all hardly wait unitl you saw mom and me or Skip or Nancy to try it out: (in true Kenny fashion!...)What is red and green and goes 100 miles an hour? What else, but a frog in a blender! The first time you and the girls told that to mom and me, we cringed! Then laughed hysterically! Then, he tried this one on all of you:
He gathered you all around him in a circle, and said, shhhhh- then he asked, "Do you want to hear a dirty joke??" and you all giggled and screamed YES!!!
He, said, Shhhh - be very quiet and listen to me- Do you want to hear a real dirty joke?! You screamed louder "YES" he said: A white horse fell into a mud puddle! You all screamed so loud with laughter, I can still hear today! You certainly didn't understand what a dirty joke was, but it came from Kenny, so you all knew it had to be the funniest joke ever! For you all knew Kenny was the coolest of cool uncles and whatever he said was "it"! Mom and I just sat back and thought, one of these days, all that he is teaching his 3 nieces and 2 nephews will come back and get him! Give my angel girl and angel boy a kiss for me- Love, lkm

Anonymous said...

Love the pictures! That's a great idea too, having the kids dress to a common theme. I was going to offer a joke, but oddly enough, the first one i thought of was the frog-in-a-blender one! I think the Laffy Taffy idea is a good one too...and you get to eat all the yummy taffy :)

Melanie