Happy New Year

Dinner at a friend's house, 11th hour run to the drugstore to pick up prescriptions before the new 2010 deductible kicks in, crash a child-free party (with our children), home, 3 Stooges marathon on AMC, fall asleep on the pull-out sofa with the kids at 11:45.

That was how we rang in our new year.  And it was awesome.  Beautiful.  Perfect.  Sober and yet so unbelievably giggly.

Of all the fun that was had, I think the girls enjoyed this the most:

Our children discovered the timeless hilarity of slapstick.  It was quite a hit.  And let me tell you how satisfying it was to watch their little confused faces look to us for permission to laugh at, say, Moe kicking Curly in the rear end.  I'd nod, and there was a moment of what I thought was an understanding that this was a different kind of violence... a fake violence... a pre-political-correctness-historical kind of violence that we could overlook because, well... IT'S SO FUNNY!?

We were all having a good laugh until this morning...

A little game of "Tie You Up In The Woods With The Coyotes", anyone?  Seriously.  That was Neve kept saying as she was slowly slowly slowly trying to manipulate her nonthreatening vienna sausage fingers to tie a knot in the tights, I mean the mouth gag.  (FYI- don't ever google "mouth gag" or "mouth muffle", as there weren't as many pictures of Olive Oil tied to the train tracks as there was pictures of certain adult games I was unaware the rest of the world was playing.)

Also, coyotes?  When did Neve ever even hear about a coyote?  And why was she leaving her sister in the imaginary woods to be eaten by them? 

And it doesn't stop there.  In the car today, our sweet extremely patient dog, Banjo, began to howl in the backseat when Terry hopped out of the car to pump gas, like hounds do.  Neve did not like this at all, and proceeded to yank his floppy ear and said, "If you keep doing this, I'll cut your ear off with scissors!"

Me:  "Neve!  Terry!?  Did you hear what she said?!"

Terry:  "No, what?"

(pause)

Terry:  "Neve!  That's awful!"

Neve:  "But those men on tv did it.  And it was funny!"

(adult heads in hands)

Happy New Year, Beautiful Friends!  I hope that this year brings you loads of smiles and laughs, even when you're left in the woods to be eaten by the coyotes.