Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Maternal fears borne out

I was randomly looking through my old posts when I found this one on my pre-natal fears that Buddy would have no sense of humor. My husband scoffed at my fears. But now we're coming to grips with the fact that the boy may well have inherited the no-humor gene from his father's side of the family.

When he was a baby, I longed to hear him laugh. He didn't. He wasn't a laugher. He laughs now. But mostly at slapstick. He laughs when someone else gets hurt. He laughs when we punch him. No seriously, the boy begs to be hit. He loves rough-housing. I avoid it as much as I can, 'cause it creeps me out. But he never laughs so loud or so gaily as when things have got out of hand. The only time I've ever heard him genuinely laugh at tv was at Tom and Jerry.

He sometimes laugh when we laugh. But it's a forced laugh. Ha, ha, ha. A laugh akin to the praising of the fine hues in a painting by the color blind.

He's missing some teeth, too. They just never came in. But that can be fixed with money. A lack of a rich, complex sense of humor can't.

I'm hoping that as his language skills become more sophisticated his sense of humor will develop, too. But I'm lowering my expectations.


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Surely not, surely not with you and Simon as parents. How cruel could life be? PPM

genderist said...

This is just a sign that he's going to have a very sophisticated sense of humor. He's just not learned the words and nuances to express it yet.

Simon said...

Many great men and women like Patton, MacArthur and Thatcher seem rather lacking in the humour department. I suspect it goes with the territory.

Simon said...

The missing teeth are my fault too, BTW.

I suspect the antifreeze in his blood - "I like it chilly and cold!" comes from both his mother's Finnish grandmother and my Geordie (ie Viking) grandmother, though.

Anonymous said...

You might check with his Uncle Good ole Boy and take measure of his sense of humor. UGOB found spankings laughable when he was Buddy's age.