funny

I have talked with Epp about this several times, and we have come to the conclusion that our kids are funny. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally, but most times entertaining and humorous.

Marta is funny. She'll get out of the pool, take off her bathing suit, and go riding around the deck on her bike in the nude. Anna, meanwhile, expresses a profound delight for food, she nearly growls when something tastes good.

Both of them were always laughers. I would spin them around and turn them upside down and blow air on their tummies and tickle their feet and make funny faces until they were hysterical with the giggles. They both react well to music; I play guitar around the house. I think I have a video of Marta somewhere break-dancing to hip hop as a toddler. Anna just waves her arms in time with the rhythm of the guitar.

Believe it or not, a lot of the other kids we meet aren't funny. Sometimes they are painfully shy, other times they are pawing at their mother's pant leg for emotional support {typically, boys do this}. Usually they are just normal kids; they mostly keep to themselves. There are also those that are funny in their own ways. I think our kids have some knack for physical comedy, though.

One day I took Marta to get balloons for Anna and Epp's birthday party. The balloon was filled with helium, and Marta was walking around staring up at her balloon when {boom} she knocked over a whole display of razors in the store. Unfortunately, she has inherited my clumsiness, but the truth is that Epp is not exactly graceful either, so she's gotten double the tendency to unintentionally cause catastrophes. Because of the way things are, though, nobody was mad at Marta and her balloon. She just stood there like a cartoon character with a smile on her face and said, "oops!"

Anna gets so excited sometimes that she flails her arms around, hitting the well-wisher in the face. You usually go into kiss her cheek and she laughs and smiles and the {whack} right in the nose. She also has little pinching hands, and she loves to pull on lips and ears. There's a bit of a sadistic side to this; when you pull away in pain, she is usually laughing. She would have made an excellent addition to a Three Stooges routine.