making whoopee

You need to know that I am not wasting my trip to Boulder weeping at peculiar stimuli. I am having a fabulous holiday full of treats and trips with my lovely family. Of which more when I can shoehorn suitable photographs into my blog posts - ( not easy when I don't have my laptop here.)

Today I am reduced to words. Lux has noticed that Isaac and Wendy often pronounce things differently from each other, she being American and he English. And sometimes Lux chooses the UK pronunciation  and sometimes the U.S. one. She says tomato and vitamins the English way. She knows that what we call sledging, Wendy calls sledding.

Sometimes there are difficulties. I used the word torch and she admonished me "That's not a torch, Sue! It's a flashlight!"

I'd bought the kids a clutch of Alan Ahlberg Red Nose Readers, and Lux loved Mrs Jolly's Joke Shop, so I decided to buy them a practical joke. The trouble was that I didn't know what Americans call Whoopee Cushions.

Tentatively I said to the man behind the counter in the toy shop, "Do you know what a whoopee cushion is?"

"Yes!" He said. "Do you want one?"

The children love it. Cece ( who is almost 3) and I played with it for half an hour solid yesterday. Every time she sits on it she shrieks with laughter. I wish you could see her. Yes, yes, I know I have a childish sense of humour. I also have a big butt. I am probably the only person in the world who has burst a whoopee cushion. Fortunately Wendy had some duct tape that fixed it, because Cece had been on the verge of heartbreak.