Things Are Just Smurfy Around Here

I am home, again, with a child who is sick, again. Connor is fighting a cold that has left him snotty and a little puny. He spent most of the weekend moping around on the couch, and this morning he just couldn't deal with the stuffy nose and cough, or the lack of sleep caused by them. So he's spending yet another day on the couch.

His illness has not put a damper on his budding sense of humor, however. He has been working hard on his jokes, and I believe that they get a good response from his peer group. His teachers say he is the kid who clowns around until all of the other kids at his table are cracking up (rather than paying attention to the teacher, of course) so I imagine he's pretty funny in their eyes. I know his fake burp cracks Chloe up every time. I'm sure that bit kills in the Idlewild lunchroom.

Sadly, I'm not four years old, so I often find his humor a bit grating. His latest schtick is to pick a word, and then to stick it randomly into sentences in place of the appropriate word. For example, when a character on a cartoon says "Thank you very much," Connor apes with a "Thank you very Mommy!" and a giggle. I'll give him the requisite smirk and nod of appreciation for the effort, but by the tenth time he has inserted "Mommy" into a sentence -or sung an entire song, replacing every word with "Mommy"- I have to leave the room or risk discouraging him with my obvious boredom. (I imagine this is how you people feel a few that's-what-she-saids into an evening with me.)

Soon Connor and I will make a trip to Walgreen's to find some kind of cold medicine that will, either by curing his cough or by rendering him unconscious, allow him to sleep through the night. I'm tired of taking unproductive days off of work, I'm tired of Connor's grumpiness, and I'm tired from the long nights listening to Connor's coughing. But most importantly, I think this extra day is all the time Connor needed to perfect his new routine. It's time to get him to school so that he can unleash his comic genius (and a whole lot of phlegm) on a room full of Madisons and Kelseys.