People on fire.

I am on a lifelong quest to find out what makes children laugh.


Children have a very different sense of humour to adults.  Some adults still have not given up their childish sense of humour, and others supress their childishness (c'mon, admit it, EVERYONE thinks the word 'poo' is funny whether they smirk or not).  However, there is something about the world that makes children cackle and roll about hysterically and giggle till they can't breathe that adults can't really grasp or understand.


I recently attended a talk by my favourite children's author, Andy Griffiths.  Andy is genius.  He is pure genius because he spites the scoffing of parents and fuddy-duddies everyone and has decided that children will READ if they LAUGH when they do it.  
I see hundreds of reluctant redaers -  in particular boys - get so stuck on Andy's work that they actually read - and Mr Griffiths teaches them by sneaking into his books enough simplicity, rhyme, repitition and challenge that are the building blocks of a healthy reading diet.




Enough of my schpiel.
Here's the good bit.


I spend an hour in a room with 200 children at their parents, listening to Andy Griffiths read and chat to them.  I wrote down for you, and me, what made them laugh.  I;m not talking a quiet, polite, snigger.  I'm talking about bursting out of their bellies, grasping the chair and wheezing laugh, then doing bit satisfied post-laughter sighs and softly mumbling the joke back over to each other minutes after the joke had ended.  

26 Things That Make Children Laugh:

1. People on fire
2. Death
3. Terrible forms of undeserved death.
4. People with stupid names like "SuckerThumb"
5. Peeople names SuckerThumb getting their thumbs cut off with giant scissors.
6. Death.
7. Whipping machines.  
8. Kids riding their bikes at goats.
9. Boys lasooing girls
10. Silliness
11. Eating dirty worms
12. Eating dirty worms and vomiting
13.  Girls being disgusting.  In fact, just say the words "girls are gross" and boys think its great.
14. Misspelling words.
15. A mother's day card that read:
"Dear Mother, 
Have a lovely mother's day, or you are doomed."
16.  Pain on other people.
17. Rude words
18. Poo
19. Humpty Dumpty getting his head smashed in.
20. Eating poo
21. Innocent animals dying
22. Guts coming out of dead aninals
23. Koalas ripping people's faces off
24. "What's brown and looks out the window?
        A poo on stilts."
25. Pushing old people in front of trucks
26. People on fire.






What sort of world do we live in?


More to come.  Stay tuned.

A little jumping off point...

The problem with not blogging in over three months is that when you finally do, there is all this PRESSURE to write something everyone will have waited expectantly for.  I don't aim to disappoint, but I fear I will.


So, I got married, went on honeymoon and am now pregnant.


Okay, the last bit is a lie, but I thought that my small blog following of close friends may get a little bit of shock at the last bit. So, yes, I now resort to shock tactics to keep my readership.  Deal with it.


Despite my saying that at my wedding I would never, never, ever have bonbonierre, I did.  Yes, I got into an argument with two friends which got me to the point of tears about how stupid I think those gifts are and how I swore never to have them, but I did.


I enlisted girls (and Tim) to make these!:

They are bags with Gypsophilia seeds in them.  They were cute.  I cannot take the creative genius for them, I employ other people to do that.  I have planted some in a pot in the backyard and am happy to announce that life has formed!  Three little seedlings have sprouted and are battling their way through the Melbourne chill.

I recently admitted to the world that even though I appreciate craft and love it, I fear I am not crafty.  But boy, I do get my kicks from seeing other people being talented and then taking advantage of it!

Have no fear - while I caved on the bonbonierre, I did NOT have a ridiculous cake.