Funny things

Things that Finn finds funny:

Standing on his head or being held upside down. I wonder what the biological basis is for this... it seems almost universal that being upside down is funny for kids.

Playing "squeeze" (a game invented by Grandma, I believe) - Here are the rules of the current instatiation of the game: First, Finn sits or stands behind you as you sit on a sofa (you have to lean forward to let him in). Then, you sit back and smoosh him against the back of the sofa and say "Squeeeeeeeeze." The first version of the game was just a hugging game, but this is what it has evolved into.

Making funny faces, including "smooshy face" (where you push your hands in on your face to make your mouth all smooshed up). Other versions: "funny face" (which involves squeezing your cheeks between your fingers and thumbs), "clown face" (otherwise known by daddy/hubby as "crazy clown face", which creeps him out totally, but Finn loves it), and googly-eyes (which involves making a surprised expression and then rolling your eyes around and around (a la James the engine, from Thomas and friends).

Readings stories or reciting nursery rhymes and replacing random words (usually nouns) with the word "Chicken". For example: Row, row, row your boat, gently down the chicken

The knock-knock banana/orange joke. For those of you who are sadly uninformed:

>Knock-knock
-Who's there?
>Banana
-Banana who?
>Knock-knock
-Who's there?
>Banana
-Banana who?
>Knock-knock
-Who's there?
>Orange?
-Orange who?
>Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

You'd think nobody had ever invented a funnier joke. Finn can only handle playing the door-answerer part, but he puts the appropriate inflection in to every line. He gets more and more pretend-exasperated as you go (he starts to get a little over-exasperated if you do too many "bananas" - two is enough; any more and he seems a bit thrown off). His exasperation hits its peak at "Orange who?" which he says in a really funny, drawn-out, high-pitched questioning voice. It's the same tone he uses when he says "Cats?!" (read the previous post--none of us could remember exactly how the Cats thing started, though).


Finn will often talk in the most amazing voice when he's amused-- it's like you can hear pure laughter channeling through his voice; his enjoyment is so raw and untainted. I wish I could bottle it... it would be the new fountain of youth, I think.

I also wish I could post a picture that would match the laughing side of Finn, but as I look through all my pics, I realize that we never capture him honestly laughing. It's always a posed smile. He's perfectly happy smiling for the camera, but it's just not the same. We have a number of pics of him crying though. What a shame that it's so easy to capture real sadness and so hard to capture real happiness with a camera.