Lately, I've been complaining, worrying, headaching, and bellyaching about all my commitments: Ed.D. internship and class, grading, and all the usual suspects lurking in my life. I'm especially mad at my weight-loss efforts (see fattysblubberblog for more on that) as of late. It also chapped my hide that I missed the proposal deadline for NCTE. I'd been waiting all year to submit, but as my sage cousin Michelle pointed out, it's a sign of how busy I really am. And then I backed out of another presentation commitment. (Sorry.)
After rushing the five hooligans through the bath (without drowning any, I might add), we actually found ourselves with a few minutes as a family without anyone gone or heading anywhere soon. We were home for the night with 45 minutes until bedtime. Imagine that. No, harder. Really imagine that...because it doesn't happen often.
And so we started reading stories and talking about books that we thought the kids would like to read with us and to read individually. For some reason, Zac was sitting on my lap in a somewhat withdrawn air. I asked him, after a while (with the girls getting silly at this point) if he liked poems. He responded with an emphatic "No!"
"Why not?" I implored. I then proceeded to tell him about the first poem I ever memorized and recited of own free will: Shel Silverstein's "Crowded Tub." I recited it to him:
There are too many kids in this tub.
There are too many elbow to scrub.
I just washed a behind that I'm sure wasn't mine.
There are too many kids in this tub.
Immediately he rolls into fits of laughter, drowning the other chaos in the room, silencing the girls' giggling. His hysterics lasted for at least three minutes without a breath. Tears. Red face. He tries to recite it to his audience. More tears. Even redder face. Silent laugh. Thump. He falls of the couch. And everyone dissolves.
And now I see that every once in a while everyone needs to just embrace that inner nine-year-old humor. As an adult I don't giggle any more, but there are times, especially when it's late, that the laughter and tears break forth, not to be stayed for several uninterrupted minutes. What beats a belly laugh that lasts so long you get a simultaneous jaw and gut workout?
I challenge everyone out there to find something that triggers that happy, giddy, lose-all-rational-control laughter. Slapstick. Looney Tunes. Gary Paulsen's Harris and Me. These are a few of mine. If you have trouble, resort to low-brow pre-adolescent potty humor. It's all about the farts. Go find your nine-year-old no matter how many wrinkles you have now. And that, my friends, is what poetry can do for the soul-even for stinky nine-year-old know-it-alls.
