Things My Children Find Funny

There is nothing that is sweeter to a parent’s ears than the dulcet tones of their child’s laughter. Unfortunately, when you have more than one child, the laughter of one is usually followed or preceded by the crying of the other. (It’s hard to really appreciate the beauty of your child’s laughter when the reason for that laughter is that they are currently looking down at their sibling who has fallen into a well). Recently, however, I got to experience both of my children laughing—nay, chortling with joy—at the same time, and at the same thing. This was probably a first for me in all of my two plus decades of parenting. As such, it should have been a magical moment. It should have been a moment for the long since abandoned baby book. (Book. Singular. No second child in the history of the world has a baby book. Third children are lucky if there is a single photograph in a family album.) So why, then, wasn’t I rejoicing with them at this turn of events, this newfound sibling bond?

Because what they were laughing at was me.

And no, I wasn’t practicing my stand up on them—not that you’d know it from their reaction.

All I did was ask for help with a Google doc and you’d think I was filming an HBO comedy special; apparently, not knowing how to use the latest technology (or whatever—I’m well aware that Google docs are not cutting edge—don’t you start, too) is pure comedy gold. Which is pretty hard to take coming from not one, but two people who didn’t even know how to wipe their own asses when I first met them (and who still, given the amount of snuffling I hear every allergy season, don’t fully comprehend how to blow their own noses.)

But I digress.

The truth is, despite the awful way it came about, I was actually thrilled to hear them finding a common ground—even if that common ground was how uncommonly inept their mother was at technology. This is because, one day, hopefully in the far, far future, they are going to have to be able to find a common ground about me. And while it’d be good for them if they were on speaking terms when that happens, it’d be absolutely great for them if they were on laughing terms as well.

Because while I’d like to believe that the only thing they’ll ever need to discuss in my old age is how I get more awesome every year, and how doctors now think that I will be the first known case of a person living forever, the more realistic part of me knows that this isn’t going to happen. One day they’re going to have to come together to make some difficult decisions, and it would be nice if they were at least able to tell some funny stories in the middle of it all.

Even if most of those stories happen to revolve around my complete inability to use Google docs.