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How nice of them to give us two Sundays in a row to give parents a chance to make one of them count. We didn't make this one count either. I always feel a bit guilty when basically the whole day is spent inside on screens, but I am pretty sure that was my childhood. I was either watching TV or playing myself at snooker and Subbuteo or throwing a cricket ball against one of those trampoline things that bounce it back to you or tramping round the Mendips with Phil Fry. My parents must have occasionally checked in on me, but back then things were a lot less hands off. I know my mum and dad didn't like me watching so much television - even though it would turn out to be important for the job I'd end up doing- but I still watched TV all the time. It felt like all day Saturday. Once you've got the kids through the first six years then surely you can just let them look after themselves. The big one is going to knock a few chunks out of the little one. But that never did me any harm, apart from make me terrified of everything, insecure and lonely.
I know I am constantly exhausted these days, but both Catie and me were powerfully tired today - it's hard to work out when you're ill when you're constantly like this, but we're both definitely under the weather. I did manage to play a bit of Twister with them in the morning and a very quick game of charades and we'd planned a family walk, but it was raining and we were zombies - the kind of zombies that just want to sit down or go back to bed - so we took it very easy and I didn't keep strict time-keeping on iPad time.
Ernie came up with a joke - What did the bum say to the other bum? That's a bummer.
It's not a good joke, obviously but I laughed for a full two minutes and saw my son's face go through delight mixed with confusion. He doesn't know why jokes are funny and was trying to work out why I found this one so hilarious. Like me, he clearly loved the feeling of creating laughter (uh-oh), but also suspected that something else was going on I think. Rightly, because I was laughing at the situation and his delight and how this was nearly a joke and thus in many ways better than a joke. He told the joke to his sister and then his mum later and neither of them laughed like I had, which must have been even more confusing for him.
Later Phoebe was saying she'd tried coffee once and it had tasted horrible, like soil, so I did the traditional joke, "This coffee tastes like dirt - I'm not surprised sir, it was just ground this morning." I knew they wouldn't understand it and I knew it was a crappy gag, but Ernie laughed anyway, because he wants to get jokes and he thought it was just about the fact that coffee tastes like dirt and that was funny enough on its own. You are not in control of how an audience interprets your joke and you can't tell them how they are supposed to enjoy it. I explained the joke, but the kids were not impressed, even though explaining a joke like this is always much funnier than the joke.
Anyway Ernie has written one more one-liner than I have this year, so I am not in a position to criticise!
