Do Fun.

I like, no…I love to laugh. Big belly laughs that eventually bring tears to my eyes. It’s kind of an addiction in fact. If I find a comedian that really makes me laugh, I’ll stop at nothing to see everything he/she has ever said. In college I use to rent videos of a certain comedian that was always so funny. One of his random jokes was “You ever notice that mice have no shoulders? You put a necklace on a mouse, it slides right down to his waist and he thinks it’s a belt. What does he care, he’s a mouse!”

But I’m older now and so is this comedian who is way too political to be funny not to mention that I’m more sensitive to the numerous F-bombs he uses too. But still, I am always on the hunt for people who can make me laugh out loud like he once did.

My daughter shares the same sense of humor and appreciation of a good laugh too. It’s comforting to have someone else that laughs hard enough to make you choke, when you are around people who are just snicker-ers. Recently we discovered a Christian comedian, Tim Hawkins and was offered the chance to see him live. What a treat. He is so funny, and clean! His humor ranges from over the top loud and crazy to genius song writer (b/c he makes up- new words to well known songs. My favorite is Hey There Delilah – a song about Samson’s wife. Check it out on GodTube.com) We purchased a video by him and our family has seen it so often that we use his punch lines as our own.

Jada and I are so desperate for a laugh, that one day we invented our own brand of fun. A nice little game we like to call Kid Tap© (yes, that’s a copyright logo…b/c I think after writing about this game, that it might take off, like Duck-Duck-Goose, or the Telephone game. No one knows who invented those games.)

Kid Tap© is a game born out of a cheap day at the mall with my girls. I was looking for an indoor activity to do one Saturday, and since the girls had not seen the Galleria Mall, took them there to do some window shopping. We stopped in the weird “foreign” stores to see fountains spewing dry ice smoke, curly bamboo stuffed into odd shaped pots, and little statues of fat men. We also pointed out funny skaters on the ice rink below, and spent a few frantic minutes in the American Girl store oogling all the miniature items for dolls that will never use them. All in all, it was a fun day- for free!

On the way back to the car, we passed the kid area where several hundred sock-footed kids were clinging to huge shiny plastic replicas of jungle caves, trees and animals. I heard Jada groan, as I said yes to Jyllian’s plea to play, while she pulled off both shoes and bounded across the foamy floor into the mix of kids. Jada and I took a spot on the squishy long bench that encircles the toy area. At first we just watched the kids, and laughed at several who were climbing up a large palm tree in the center. We then began to take bets on who would reach the top. This then turned into bets of other random happenings.

“I got $50 bucks that little round head boy in red will get knocked over and cry within 2 minutes.” (hey...DON’T JUDGE ME! I didn't knock him over. But he did cry. )

And after several kids ran by knocking into our knees and stepping on our feet- Born was the great idea that became a fun game for all:

“Hey, let’s see how many kids you can tap, running by. For every kid you ‘tap’ you get a point. Ready- Go!”

And then every kid that ran by, we took delight in sticking out our foot to "tap" them as they breezed by, running full speed. The game is challenging- b/c #1 you can’t actually TRIP the kid…that’s just mean and not our goal (besides, parents don’t like to see other adults doing that to their kids.) #2. It’s weird to see another adult trying to “tap” your kid. So it has to be a sneaky game. And #3 kids are a little surprised by it too, but that's what makes it funny.

At one point the score was 4 -2, Jada winning when a small kid who had probably stepped on my foot 3-4 times already…stood right in front of me. I got so excited at scoring…that I tapped him a little too hard with my foot…and he turned around and looked at me with a face that made us bury our faces in our hands and howl with laughter- tears streaming down both our cheeks. At this a few others started to notice. But no one said anything….so we continued to add rules.

5 points if you tap an adult, 4 points if you tap a child on the head, no one can tap the same kid more than twice.

Finally, Jyllian tired of the play area- and we were ready to leave. She noticed that Jada and I seemed to be having way too much fun, and asked what in the world were we doing. I casually explained the game to her, through snorts and laughs while I put her shoes back on her feet. Then we stood up and Jada said “okay, tie breaker on the way out.”

Jyllian quickly stood up and ran around tapping all the kids heads in the area on the way to the door, which no one paid any attention to, b/c she was just another wild kid like the rest of them. Cheater.

When we were on our way to the car, Jada grabbed my arm and said "Oh my gosh mom, that was the most fun I've had in a long time! I can't wait to tell my friends, we are so funny! I'm glad we came here today!"

Some might raise an eyebrow and suggest "that I contemplate what I am teaching my own children by inventing such games that exploit the slightly non-PC treatment of other young children." And to that I would say,

"Ah Lighten up! You're no fun!"