Spectacular! Spectacular!

Yesterday at dinner The Ben spent his time in the highchair trying to get Anna and I to laugh at his latest stand-up routine (he writes new material just about every month now). I think he gets most of his inspiration from his conversations with the cat, and a few mornings I swear I’ve overheard him bouncing new ideas off the stuffed animals in his crib (Kermit the Frog sounds like a tough critic). Mostly he unveils his best gags at the dinner table where the audience comes straight from long, tiring days at work and even longer days at home with their babies. It’s become, I think, Ben’s favorite moment in the day: making mommy and daddy laugh. And he totally knocks ‘em dead when he visits his grandparents for the Saturday matinee.

It all started way, way back when Ben was about 8 months old (it might not seem all that long ago to you. . .) when he discovered that he could take over a crowd by snorting like a pig while flashing a crooked grin and giggling. Then after he figured out the kind of audience he was attracting, he appended his routine to include this grunting, wide-eyed grimace that made him look like he was trying to squeeze one out (if you know what I mean). Everyone seemed to keep laughing, and Ben took his audience’s attempts to mimic the snorting and grimacing (Encore! Encore!) as an affirmation of his comic genius. So he continued to write.

The following month he bombed with his blowing-raspberries gig (see: been there), though one anonymous pundit (ok, it was me) heralded the act as an avant-garde statement in opposition to the inclusion of herbage in the infantile nutritional regime, while at the same time raising an awareness for the positive effects of flatulence in the family unit. Nevertheless, he kept writing.

The months rolled by and Ben continued to kill at the dinner table. His routine expanded with the likes of the head-tilted-to-the-side bit, the fake-coughing bit, and some classic Jordan-esque tongue-wagging. All of them got his parents reluctantly chuckling and eventually joining in with their best imitations of Ben’s funny faces. I mean, who can resist the urge to imitate (and instigate) a baby shaking his head at you with his mouth grinning wide open, and his tongue wagging about his chin just like a dog’s? Not me, sir. And not my wife. And certainly not Kermit.

So this month’s act appears to be an homage to his original grimace, except the look on his straining face has been transformed from “Look at me (ugh). . .I’m trying REALLY. . .REALLY. . .REALLY (grunt) HARD. . . to. . . POOP” into something more like “I LOVE YOU I’M SO HAPPY I’M SO HAPPY I CAN HARDLY WITHSTAND IT LOOK AT HOW WIDE I CAN OPEN MY EYES”. It’s funny as hell. And fun to do!

I just wonder how many brain cells we’re killing with all the straining and what not.

Ahhhh, Ben. . . you crack me up, dude.