kiwords

Sophia hit on a joke the other day that brought down the house. Now, Sophia is three, remember. So do I have to put the quote marks around "joke"? You understand, right?

Anyhow, we were driving somewhere (probably home from the new house), and she called out from her car seat prison, "What if...we had a DOG and we named it BUSTER BAXTER! BUT!" and here she started to giggle behind two coquettish hands that she'd brought up to her nose, "BUT we called him TOOTER BUTT!"

And lo, there was much hilarity. Tre was driving (Tre is always driving), and I was afraid he would run off the road. There were tears of mirth. Max and Raphael howled. I rolled my eyes, knowing what was coming next. And what was coming next was a thousand repeats of "TOOTER BUTT!" Sometimes the dog is named something other than Buster Baxter, like...Bust. But the punchline, the golden, golden punchline, always remains the same.

Tooter butt.

Tre laughs every time. Max gives her a polite chuckle. Raphael, depending on his mood, either laughs along, or demonstrates his disgust with the sort of eye roll that requires full head involvement to a degree that I doubt our chiropractor would approve of. Clay and I pretend to be deaf. I suppose I should try to encourage her to strive for a more ladylike tone, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort. I don't try to stop water from being wet, either. 

The other day Sophia and I were driving somewhere, and I heard her quietly running through the Tooter Butt routine behind me. After a few reiterations, she called out, "Mom? Mom? Tooter Butt isn't funny anymore."

"Oh, really?" I said, falling back on the response that I use for 94% of my children's statements.

"No. It's not." She was silent for a moment. I could almost feel the maturity level rising in her. "BUTT is ALWAYS funny, though."