Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Life As A Silly Parent




I love being silly, cutting up, and just letting loose.  This is especially true when the kiddo is in the same kind of mood.  A most endearing quality is that he has inherited my quirky sense of what is funny.  We enjoy watching old Marx Brothers movies together and Three Stooges episodes.  Anything that will make us have the kinds of giggles that turn in to belly laughs.

Tonight, little man and I had errands to run and while in the car, from the backseat I hear "excuzzzze meeeee, who ahrrre you please?", in the worst French accent imaginable.

One glance in the rear view mirror and I can see the silly has started and I better catch-up quickly.

I try my best Russian accent, aka Boris and Natasha mashed up in to one person.  "Vy, hello dere.  I deed not zee you zitting dere."

We proceed to converse in our horrible broken accents, barely understanding each other for a few blocks, until I am informed that my Russian is starting to sound like French and he is "the onlyeee Freunch per-sonne in za carrre."

So, I break out my Brooklyn.

"Zo, jus who do uze tink you iz, huh?  Who let uze into my cah?  You ain't Americunn, where you from anywayze?"

"Me, oh well my par-ents are from Frannnce and ze brought me heeeere when I was young-er, so I am an Americannnnne."

"Yeah, well I don't know no body who talks like dat from America.  You must be one of dem French Fries!"

We are giggling and mimicking bad accents all over the East Bay.  I am throwing my best Brooklyn/Jersey at him, and he is trying his best to keep up the French accent.  He makes false bravado threats in the French kid voice about how he is "ze best American who speaks ze Freunch he knows."

"Oh yeah!   Up ya nose wit a rubba hose!"

I was lucky to keep the car on the road with the guffaws coming from both the front seat and the back seat.  He had no clue what it meant, but it was enough of a vivid statement, that his mental picture put him into fits of laughter.

At the dinner table we explained where the phrase originated, but by then it had lost its shine.

Ya hadda be dere ta unnnastand

No comments:

Post a Comment