27 Years of Funny!

Twenty-seven years ago tonight, I gave birth to our second son, Adam. I still don’t know where the years all went but then again, I find myself saying that quite often these days. . . . about almost everything.

From the moment he was born, Adam was easy to please. He never asks for much (though his wish lists have changed remarkably since he bought a house), and he’s generally been a pretty cheerful kid.

One thing though, that Adam struggled with as a kid was talking. What I should say is that he struggled with not talking; clearly a trait that he acquired from his father. At first we weren’t too concerned, but by the time he was two and a half, we sought advice.

Eventually, Adam landed in speech therapy. As you might expect, speech therapists play games with the kids to help them learn how to talk, and pronounce words properly. The whole process is really quite amazing.

One day, Adam’s speech teacher showed him a picture of a woman, slightly bent with a wet mop in her hands, and a bucket off to her side. She says to my adorable three-year-old, “What is this woman doing, Adam?” “I don’t know,” he replies. The speech teacher thinks Adam isn’t cooperating and says, “come on, Adam, you know what she’s doing.” “No I don’t,” he answers again. At this point the speech teacher, I’m sure, is concerned about how bright this child really is and says, “She’s mopping the floor, Adam. Your mom mops the floor, doesn’t she?” To which my sweet son earnestly replies “No, my mom never mops the floor.”

As you can imagine, the speech teacher had some questions for me when I picked Adam up that day. I was mortified that this woman thought I never cleaned the floors, but I assured her that Adam, had indeed, told the truth. He had never seen me mop the floor in such a manner. While I did make a practice of keeping my floors clean, I didn’t own a mop. I’ve always felt that a floor gets much cleaner if you get down with a bucket and a rag and put a little elbow grease into it. And, since I was younger then, that’s how I cleaned my floors. Of course, this was a job that I saved for nap time because a three-year-old and a bucket full of water just isn’t a good combination when cleaning is your goal.

I still laugh though at the thought of Adam looking at the speech teacher and essentially saying, “I have no idea what that woman is doing.”

If you still have small children you are well aware that they all do funny stuff. And, I’m sure you’ve had people tell you to write down those funny ms before you forget. But, when you are right in the middle of diapers, mounds of laundry, and keeping the floors clean, writing down funny stories doesn’t seem to take precedence. And besides, you reason, how could I ever forget something so cute? But amazingly enough, those old people are right. You do forget. You don’t forget them all, but you forget a lot. And then one day your little one is 27 and you wonder why you didn’t write it all down.

I’m excited to be spending Adam’s birthday weekend with him at his new (for he and Heidi, at least) home. Maybe he’ll say something funny. If he does, you can be sure I’ll write it down.

Happy birthday, my son. I love you.