Sleep Interrupted

Ben has recently learnt about the concepts of “jokes” from his friends at nursery. He knows it’s something that you say that makes you and the other person laugh. What he hasn’t cracked yet is what constitutes funny. He just thinks that a joke is something out of the ordinary, so for example one of his first jokes was “you went to the toilet but you went on a potty”. Okay, slightly amusing perhaps but not a joke proper.

The other day he wanted us to tell jokes to each other so I reached into the recesses of my brain for some playground classics. Whatever I said he’d riff on to come up with his own, so we ended up with some bizarre ones like:

Why did the banana cross the road? To get to the other side!

What do you call a deer with no antlers? An antelope!

That last one actually made me laugh. I can remember my sister going through exactly this stage at around the same age. Strange to be seeing it all again with a new generation. I guess that’s how grandparents feel all the time.

Jessica is not to be left out from the comedic endeavours. After taking her to the bathroom before bedtime I said to her, “Okay, now go back into your bedroom”. She immediately turned round and walked into her bedroom backwards. One of the (many) things they don’t warn you about is how often you have to keep a straight face when you’re a parent.