"It's not funny, Mommy!" (Oh, but it is.)

*Disclaimer: I started this post almost two months ago, on February 8. But before I could finish it, Evan's germs decided they'd had enough of him, multiplied by about 100, and decided they really, really liked me. I oscillated between the couch, my shower, and the urgent care center for almost two weeks. (Thanks, Evan--love you, too.) And re: the urgent care center docs, I couldn't take anything good, thanks to my pregnant state. (Oh. Yeah. Don't think I mentioned that before. But yes! The stork is finally--finally!--circling the Uhl household once more. I'm 19 weeks today, and definitely on my way to rotund-ness...though I guess to be honest, it's already been achieved. But more about that miraculous wonderfulness later.)

Then our basement flooded (not that I had anything to do with the cleaning up--that was all Nate and my dad).

Then I got busier with a few more pieces for the magazine. (Did I mention I've been freelancing since Christmas? Love!)

So anyway. Here we are. Just pretend it's still chilly out...shouldn't be too hard, considering I froze at Evan's first soccer practice two nights ago.

Feb. 8:
Well, it's the first bee-you-ti-ful day of the year (Sixty-five degrees, people! Flip-flop weather!), and Evan is sick. All those preschool germs ganged up on him around 11 o'clock last night and sent me to CVS in my pajama pants, where I lined up all the cough syrups and tried to figure out which one of the 15 bottles was best. Evan's scary-good at taking medicine, but waking him up last night to suck down a teaspoon of sickly-sweet-smelling cherry PediaCare was too much. He wailed and fought and finally spit it out all over my shirt, poor guy. So to make it up to him, I made up a bed on the couch and we watched the latest "Glee" together and ate Tostitos at 1 a.m. I kept him home from school (this, the day after he told me he couldn't wait to go to school), canceled our open gym playdate he would have loved, and turned down a late offer of a jaunt to the park. I don't know who was more bummed. So. In the vein of making us both feel better (well, me, anyway), here are two sort-of-almost-very-funny things that happened last week.

1. Evan, upset that I wouldn't let him on the computer to play games on Sesame Street's web site, huffed his way through the kitchen, turned, came back, and said, "I'm gonna slug you, Mommy!" (If he'd only been wearing a blue dress and a curly black wig, he'd have made a perfect Lucy Van Pelt.) After picking my jaw up off the hallway floor, I told him that he never, EVER gets to say that to anyone--especially bigger kids who could deck him--and sent him to his room to look at books. Nice books. Like books where long-haired princesses hit guys over the head with frying pans, and cats eat people, and Grinches steal Christmas trees and Who hash. Then I went back to work finishing my last bit for the magazine and grimly accepted that even Charlie Brown (Charlie Brown!) isn't safe from censoring. Of all the lines in the Christmas, Halloween, and Easter Peanuts cartoons, that's the line he picked. And he used it to great effect, too. Again, the double-edged sword of finally talking.

I tried to put him down for a nap later, but I could NOT stop looking at him and giggling, thinking of what he'd said. Because as much as I wasn't happy with him, it was funny.

Now, I don't know why, but Evan--the laughing-est kid I know--cannot stand it when other people laugh. I don't know if he thinks I'm laughing at him (which granted, I usually am), or what. But it bugs him to no end, and he'll say, "Stop laughing, Mommy. It's not funny." The "It's not funny" line is originally from "Happy Feet," when the little penguin hits the worst musical note imaginable. But Evan says it very seriously--not at all like in the movie--so he's since amended it to suit his own purpose.

Still, I kept giggling every time I thought of him slugging me over SesameStreet.org, and he kept telling me it wasn't funny. I finally had to make him roll over and face the wall so I wouldn't have to look at his impossibly cute little head.

2. Later the same night, Nate and I read The Gruffalo in bed, with a very squirmy Evan in the middle. Pre-story, Evan tried to tunnel his way under the covers. Post-story, he decided to jump on the bed, frog-style, ribbits included. Nate and I both told him to stop--that he was going to fall off the bed and get hurt--but he kept on. He'd stop for a minute, then continue, ribbiting happily. But suddenly he threw himself into being a frog full-force, and threw himself right off the end of the bed. I can't even describe it...it was like his hands were on the bottom bed rail, and when his feet hit the mattress, they bounced with such force that they shot right past his head, and he disappeared. Straight down. Nothin' but air.

It was one of the scariest--and funniest things--I've ever seen, multiplied that right as Evan shot off the end, he very quickly said, "Oh, no!" right before he hit the floor. Of course, like any normal little boy, he started crying. And like any normal parent, Nate jumped (successfully) off the bed and said something to the effect of asking if Evan was alright, where did it hurt, etc. I, too, jumped off the bed (incident-free) and made sure Evan was okay (he was), but then I started to giggle. Then laugh. I may have even snorted in a valiant effort to stop. And mid-sniffle, while sitting in my lap, Evan wailed, "IT'S NOT FUNNY, MOMMY!" I tried to explain if he'd had my view, he'd be laughing, too.

And for the rest of the night, all I kept seeing was the image of Evan's feet flying past his head, mid-ribbit. And I had to retreat to the bathroom every so often so I could stifle another giggle in a fluffy bath towel. 

And did he learn anything from his flight off the bed? Nope. Mr. Frog still bounds into bed every night, and I fully expect him to ribbit right into his headboard in the next week or two. And yes, after I check to make sure he's okay, I'll probably laugh. At least until I get chastised. Again.