Raising Abbott & Costello

After viewing the preceding video and a number of similar videos, my suspicions have been confirmed: this summer, we are raising Abbott and Costello....

This occurred to me after this past weekend. As we drove to the home of some friends, Ab and AA bantered about in the backseat. And it was the same kind of back and forth that is typical to most Abbott and Costello routines. AA is definitely Lou Costello, in stature and demeanor (though not as plump); Ab - tall, lean and usually strictly business -plays the straight man, Bud Abbott.

It's so funny from the front seat, because they don't realize that they are teaming up to create comedy. Now AA for one, has as his motivation, either creating laughter or just aggravating his big sister; so he "plays dumb" or acts as if he doesn't hear correctly what his sister is saying. Ab, who on the other hand, just likes for everything to be correct - grows increasing angry with his every quip. As the volume and intensity of her voice reaches new levels, his creative ad libs seem to increase. Just yesterday Ab cast a barb his way stating that he was just trying to be silly! to this he calmly replied that he was trying to be funny; he liked being funny because it made people laugh and they would become his friends.

I am usually annoyed by these antics and just tell them to stop bickering, but as I said, on a couple of times this past weekend, I just listened and grinned.

Annoying antics from the back seat are notorious in my family - for my older brother and sister, on long trips from Griffin, Georgia to Sarasota, Florida (Griffin, being where my maternal grandparents lived; Sarasota being our home) they sang the almost eternal ballad, "Found a Pea-Nut". As my Dad tells it, they sang it without end.

So I understand and appreciate that the need to annoy is prevalent when two or more children are gathered together in tight quarters.

Perhaps it is a rite of passage.

I love my kids, but so often I stray from just enjoying them, to worrying about what others think of them. Humor -especially classic humor -is definitely a characteristic that I want to see cultivated in my children. It may not take them far, but it will certainly smooth out many of the bumps in the road. We need some classic humor around here!

From this day forward, I am going to try to view this backseat banter no longer as a point of contention, but rather as entertainment.