Overheard At My House...

We live in busy times. Life passes quickly, and sometimes those little moments, the ones we think we’ll never forget, the funny little things our kids say, or the unforgettable incidents we promise ourselves will be forever etched in our memories, get brushed aside in our overloaded, overtaxed brains.

I live in a funny household, both on purpose, and at times, by accident. My husband and I like to tease our kids, and when we can actually pull it off, to pull one over on each other. I keep a canister on my kitchen counter strictly to keep track of the funny things that are said around here, and beside it a pad of paper, so that when someone does something “noteworthy” (not to be confused with “sponge-worthy”), I write it down, date it, and toss it in the canister.

Today, I decided to look through the canister, and here are a few of the gems I dredged out:

1) Said by our son, when he was 10 years old: “The sun will burn out in our lifetime. Guaranteed.” (He was particularly impressionable at the time and was hanging around an older boy who was VERY opinionated…and sadly misinformed.)

2) Said by my husband and me, to our son (who was about 8 at the time): “You’re lucky, when we were little we only had two flavors of ice cream to choose from, vanilla and chocolate. Only they weren’t called vanilla and chocolate, they were just ‘white’ and ‘brown’.” (Nice! This was our version of “you kids have it so good these days.”)

3) Our youngest daughter, when she was 6 and watching the cat clean himself: “His fur must taste really good.”

4) And our oldest daughter, when she was 21 and trying to explain to her friends why you can’t drive to Alaska: “Just look at a map [of the United States]. Alaska’s right next to Hawaii.” (Ahaha…I almost cried laughing. And, umm, yeah, she just got accepted to the University of Washington!)

(Yep, there it is!)

5) And drumroll please: (Because sometimes my husband gets me too) After seeing a newsclip of a baby chick and a mouse on TV, my husband says to me: “Did you hear about that? They did the first brain transplant from a mouse to a chick.” It took him a minute before he got me to say, “Really?” And then he laughed at me, “Yeah,” he said, “But all it does is peck at the cheese all day.” (Ha-freakin-ha!)

6) Soooo, about a week later he was walking down the hallway in his brand new workout shoes after coming home from the gym, and I say, “Dude, your shoes light up when you walk.” And (all embarrassed) he goes, “No way!” After several minutes of jumping up and down, and looking over his shoulder at them trying to make them light up, he finally figured out that I was messing with him. (Maybe he was the one who had the brain transplant!)

I thought you’d like to see why our kids will need therapy. Lots and lots of therapy!

I also thought I read somewhere that laughter was the best medicine. No???