That's Bologna!

Lately Mr.T has hit a silly phase. He’s got his jokes, his silly faces and his dress code... he insists on wearing his shorts backwards, usually with a drawstring hanging out as a tail, and he loves wearing girl dress-up – just to get a reaction. He’ll ask me daily, “Mom, will people laugh at me?” I usually suppress a giggle and tell him the public just may laugh but, taking my little boy in my arms, I insist that I won’t laugh and will always love him no matter what. “But will people think I’m silly?” he demands on knowing. “Yes”, I tell him, “people will think you’re silly”. And so he smiles and walks away triumphantly with his tail between his legs or his wings floating behind him. This shy little boy of mine likes to make people laugh; remarkably, he’s successful!

Our lunches lately have mainly consisted of a rampage of knock-knock jokes and periodic reminders to “eat your food please”. Typically these jokes are not in the least bit funny, but occasionally I’ll get a good laugh out of the complete ridiculousness of it all.
Today the jokes were on again, but this time we had some special visiting comedians. Mr.T started it by playing ventriloquist with his bologna. Soon everyone was in on it and each slice of bologna had both a face and character – complete with voice and intonation! Mr. T even named his bologna “Silly Wonka” (we are reading the “eccentric” Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory right now). BigJ split her bologna in two and after they were done telling their jokes, the pieces fell in love and got married. Little E’s piece was a singing dinosaur and really rocked the table!


All in all Mr. T and his siblings have taught me some valuable lessons. I need to laugh more, even at lunch time. It’s fun to laugh with others and not take things so seriously. And most important, it’s imperative to be able to laugh at ourselves, even if we are dragging our tail between our legs, and especially if we are flying high.