Belly Laughs
It’s so much fun to see Rerun develop his own sense of self and sense of humor over these last few months. He’s very much a two-year-old, so the answer to every single question is “no,” but he’s begun to tell me when he needs a diaper change (he says “poo poo,” no matter what he’s done), try to sing his favorite songs (“The Butterfly Song” is a favorite, along with this one), and begun to put names to faces. He can say Tad’s name properly, but he gave Ane a brand-new nickname – he is now calling her “Hasa,” which, to my ear, sounds very Japanese.
But by far, the sense of humor is the best part. Like all kids, he appreciates slapstick, and his siblings never fail to provide fodder for that (intentionally, most of the time). But he also adores funny voices. The Webmaster does a good Yoda. Me, I manage a decent-enough Cookie Monster, but the Webmaster’s is better.
The Cookie Monster voice is important because Rerun’s favorite Sesame Street character is still Cookie Monster. Grandma and Gichan gave him his own Cookie Monster hand puppet for Christmas, but they still have at their house the vintage Cookie Monster hand puppet that the Major, Ressis, Auntie and I all grew up with. That Cookie Monster is quite battered after so many years of love and play, but it has one great advantage of the modern Cookie Monster puppets – it can actually eat things. The old puppet has a slit at the fold of it’s mouth that allows Cookie to “eat” items. Which is a vital part of Cookie Monster’s act, of course!
Yesterday evening, the Webmaster and Ane were at church for the Monday night activities, so I took pizza over to Grandma’s house after Tad’s swim lesson and speech therapy sessions were done for dinner. Grandma watches Rerun for me while I’m running around on Mondays. So the boys and I crashed her house for dinner.
After eating, Tad was actually playing pretty nicely with Rerun, but as Grandma and I were chatting, one of the boys handed me the Cookie Monster puppet. I started “talking” to Rerun in the Cookie Monster voice – “Rerun? Do you like… cookies?”
Rerun began to giggle. Then it developed into his full-out belly laugh. It is probably the most infectiously happy sound in the whole world, because whenever he starts laughing like that, I always end up laughing along. So I hammed it up, which was aided by Tad, who was trying to stuff items like blocks and small doll plates down Cookie Monster’s gullet. I made Cookie Monster eat them, then I made him burp in Rerun’s face.
This got him laughing so hard that he actually fell down on the floor and rolled around, helplessly laughing. Grandma had never seen him like this and was laughing herself (as was I). “You’ve got him laughing so hard that he’s going to wet himself,” she said. “Good thing he’s already wearing a diaper!”
And not more than five minutes later, mid-laugh as Cookie Monster was eating yet another wooden block, Rerun stopped, looked me in the eye, and said, “I poo poo.”
Grandma and I laughed so hard that we cried.
I changed his diaper before we left her house.
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