Family Moab

Family Moab
In Arches National Park

Friday, November 18, 2011

The Sound of One (Small) Hand Clapping

“How many pancakes can you fit in a dog house?”
“None, because snakes don't have armpits!”
- Wild laughter.

Kids are hilarious, mostly because they think they are. The wildly creative joke above was derived by my youngest brother when he was of tender age and desperately trying to keep our focus at the dinner table. With four older siblings and two parents at the table, it was a tough go of it, conversationally speaking, and James had to reach (wildly at times) to get everyone to tone down their rhetoric and talk to him.

My sister emailed this joke quite recently to remind us of its humor and longevity. The joke resonated with me because my youngest son performs similar antics to get all of his siblings’ and parents’ senses fixed on him. One of his recent habits (I say recent, though it seems an eternity since he started), is to clap loudly at the dinner table, or in the bathroom – really any small, confined space where the noise shocks me into wide-eyed, upset-stomach, trembling shock. The pint-sized kiddo has hands that fit inside a teacup, but he has perfected his clap until it deafens the unaware. In this respect he takes after my mild-mannered mother, whose loud clapping at basketball games actually provoked my brothers to ask her to “tone it down.” They might not have a genetic link, but she has taught Daniel a thing or two about bringing his palms together.

I should just ignore the noise, I know. But sudden loud noises are detrimental to my mental health and physical well-being, and so I ask him PLEASE to refrain from clapping at the table. He can clap anywhere else (“Except the bathroom, Mom, when you’re there,” he reminds me), and I encourage him to do so. Yet, he unfailing forgets to clap unless I am within a three-foot radius of him, usually carrying something breakable.

Last night he made us laugh so hard that I had to forgive the clapping. While I was reading the last Harry Potter book to Aden and William, Daniel decided enough was enough. Attention needed to turn his way. He rooted around in my swim bag and pulled out my swim caps and two pairs of goggles. He put the black Harvard cap on his head and put the orange triathlon cap on top of that so that he looked like a round-faced rooster. Then he added a pair of super-dark goggles over his eyes and danced a jig around the room. Aden warned me, “Don’t look at him, Mom,” but we all gave in and busted our guts laughing with him.

And lest I forget, my kids have finally solved the riddle: “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there, does it make a sound?” Their answer, “Of course, because monkeys aren’t deaf.” Didn’t you know?

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