American Girl

She waits another week to fall apart...

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American girls are weather and noise....

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. ~ Thomas Paine

Yesterday my nephew's pre-school celebrated "Heritage Day".  They have to do something fun, because all of the public schools are closed for Winter Recess, and the poor three and four year olds are stuck going to school.  On Heritage Day, you're supposed to dress up in an "American" theme, and march in a parade.  Poor planning lands this event in the middle of winter, so it's an indoor parade through the church at school.  (Because there actually aren't enough parades in church)  Then they assembled in the front and sang songs.  Totally, totally cute.

There was a boy, not my nephew, dressed as a cowboy, and playing a drum.  The drum had a strap the went around his neck so that the drum could hang, hands free, in front of his belly.  As he walked he pounded on his drum and led his entire class, proud as can be.  Little did he know, his too-big pants had fallen down and were around his ankles.  Or, perhaps he just didn't care.  I don't think modesty kicks in until around age six, so none of his classmates cared either.  In fact, they didn't even seem to notice.  But his horrified mom lept from her seat in the back of the church and kind of zig-zagged her way through the parade of cowboys and indians and red white and blue dressed children to reach her son and attempt to pull up his pants.  I think he thought she was trying to take away his drum, so he put up quite a fuss, and there was a struggle.  The paraders parted like the Red Sea and moved to either side of the spectacle, kind of rubbernecking the scene in a disinterested kind of way.   Finally dressed, the drummer made it to his place just in time to sing "It's a Grand Old Flag".  It was excellent.

My mom mentioned that when he was a teenager he would probably be tormented with that story.  Actually, forget the teen years, if something like that happened to one of my brothers, we'd still bring it up every chance we get, and they're in their forties.  We started talking about other people's embarrassing moments, like the time my brother broke his foot kicking what he thought was a rubber ball, but turned out to be a bright pink bowling ball.  And then there was that time my sister in law was holding her new baby at his christening, posing for pictures, when my niece, then a toddler, tugged on her mom's skirt a little too hard and pulled it right down.

I think we both thought of it at the same time.  I didn't dare bring it up, the time my brother and I were on the beach in shallow water, overcoming my fear of crabs, while my mom swam in deeper water with the two older boys.  There was this huge, unexpected wave that knocked down the three of them.  They gathered themselves, and my mom stood up to check on us, and her bathing suit had totally shifted over to one side, and she had no idea.  She was laughing at how this wave had knocked them down, and everyone else was laughing at her topless self.  So at the top of my lungs, I screamed "MOM!  Your BOOB!" (Just in case there was anyone left on the beach who hadn't noticed) and she quickly ducked down and adjusted herself.  Oh man, did we laugh a lot about that.  More us girls than the boys, who just can't appreciate a good boob joke as much.

The infamous boob is gone now, a casualty of cancer.  But we looked at each other, both remembering the same day at the beach and neither one daring to say it out loud, and we broke down into fits of laughter right there, leaving everyone else wondering what the heck was wrong with us.

I think that we haven't laughed about boobs nearly enough lately.

posted by: AmericanGirl at 15:17 | link | comments (3) |

Comments:

#1  25 February 2005 - 15:20

 

Laughter is the best medicine, and that has to be one of those perfect moments in life. Thanks for sharing.

InMyLife

#2  25 February 2005 - 17:16

 

This reminded me of dressing up like the Liberty Bell for a grade school parade during the Bicentennial. Nothing exciting happened.

rustymadgal

#3  25 February 2005 - 17:28

 

That is so great that you can still see the humor even with tough times! It's also great how little kids just keep on going, paying no attention to the things that make us adults cringe in horror!! :)

jlhpisces

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