Some Funnies

We've had a few times lately when we've started laughing and couldn't stop.  Here they are, to brighten your day.  Or not.  :)

We were sitting at dinner one night and my three year-old's sippy cup was emitting a soft, high-pitched squeak as air released from inside.  Someone said "I hear the kittens!"  Our garage, where the kittens have been home-basing, has a door directly to our dining room, so a couple of the kids thought the sound they heard was kittens meowing from the other side of the door.  I told them no, the sound is Ava's sippy.  No Mom, they said, it is the kittens!  We can hear them!  So then everyone hushed and heard the meow-like sound emitting clearly from Ava's sippy cup.  Then I said "maybe inside Ava's sippy is a tiny kitten!"  Not that funny, but it made everyone bust a gut, if you know what I mean.  Then my oldest joked that in the grocery stores next to the 1% and 2% milk you can now find "Milk With Tiny Kitten."  They were laughing so hard, even the baby joined in with a forced machine-gun laugh that was adorable and infectious.  Then it degenerated into jokes that weren't quite so high-brow, like "butter with leper/leopard finger"  (not funny, I know).  Fun times.

Playing ping pong with my 10 year-old in our basement and my three year-old wanted in on the action.  I set up a chair next to my side of the table while my son and I attempted a game.  The difficulty in actually playing a serious game with baby underfoot and 3 year-old swiping at anything that came her way made us sort of give up, starting first with high-lobbed I-don't-really-care-about-this-game-anymore shots, continued fog of scoring that always ended in declaring it must be a tie, and a loose ball that got up into the floor joists and rattled around a few times before descending back to earth.  We laughed so hard that things then degenerated into a total free-for-all, hitting the wildest and craziest shots across the room at each other, rarely hitting the table.  We laughed so hard that wetting our pants became an option.

Playing Catan for 3 long hours, my husband begging for someone to mercifully "just win!  Please!"  Husband getting frustrated as I kept confusing his pieces with our daughter's, as well as some continued confusion about the rules.  Watching him as baby tried to climb on the table, kneeling in the cards, my six year-old sneaking my cards then trying to auction them to the highest bidder, watching my nine year-old prudently try to save all her resources only to keep having to give up cards; a super healthy snack of salami slices and brownies (though we ate super healthy this week! it felt really good!) that almost turned into dinner as evening waned into night, little girls wandering off as they lost interest, watching Esther on TV, and then, finally, husband came from behind and won!  That sneaky devil.