The Cuckoo Mama

I like to think of myself as an amusing person, someone with a modicum of wit and a decent sense of humour which, sometimes, hovers on the precipice of highbrow. I’m fond of a laugh and of making others chuckle too. I was therefore in my absolute element when I recently read that, at around two and a half years, a toddler’s sense of humour should start coming to the forefront, tomfoolery can be enjoyed and it’s a really rewarding parental time to foster this playfulness, developing in your child.

Great! I thought, now is my time to shine in the world of toddler stand-up.

I figured that, at all of thirty months, Sam might not yet appreciate the more refined (or should I say more mature?) humour in my repertoire of cheese jokes. Know your audience, thought I, and thus began to play the buffoon in order to be my son’s favourite comedienne.

You know the stuff; funny voices, funny faces, stealing daddy’s glasses and doing a comedic stumble or, all of the above! The triple whammy combo of crone voice, glasses and a fall over my own two feet is always a big hit. I could rake it in on tips if my toddler actually had any hard cash of his own to hand over for my jocosity.

However, try, and succeed, as I might, at bringing down the house on a regular basis via the medium of parental slapstick, I have come to the harsh realisation that no degree of peculiar walk can ever compete with the ultimate in toddler farcicality;

Farting.

Bottom trumpets, windies (as it’s known in our household), fizzlers, flumps, rippers, whoppers or honkers, call it what you will, but rest assured that nothing is as funny, to a two year old, as the sound either made from, or made to sound like, the noises which pop out from their own rear ends.

Oh the hours of hilarity.

The cars blow off steam, the bears’ bottoms grunt, and it’s got to the stage whereby I really do think poor Old MacDonald really should go and see his GP, because he’s forever expressing flatulence on his farm. My sympathies are definitely with his wife, ee i ee i oh.

Feeling pretty certain that I wasn’t going to be the only parent of a bottom tuba obsessed child, I figured I’d see if I could do a bit of research to work out, just why, children (and yes let’s admit it, us big children too) find farts so funny.

Google here I come…

And they’re everywhere! In films, in books, in whoopee cushions and in gross motor skills development, okay tenuous link here but it’s got to take some coordination and skill to create an arm pit pumping sound right?

They’re also honoured! Unbelievably windies actually have their own national day. Yes! January 7th is officially ‘Pass Gas day’, somewhat ironically following national bean day, on January 6th. I kid you not, I seriously couldn’t make this stuff up.

As I also couldn’t make up that research is currently being conducted as to how farting has been shown to play a role in regulating the brain and behaviour. Check me out getting all sciency. And obviously I didn’t just copy the title of the research paper out word for word and hyperlink it; I understood every sentence…

As gut-busting as gut bursts might be to man and child it’s, seemingly, official; women just don’t find them as rip-roaringly comical. Why? Those psychology folks can’t tell us exactly, just yet, so the mystery of the mist lives on. Proof indeed, if ever we needed it, that us gentlefolk are obviously way more sophisticated in our badinage! Yet, as wonderfully poised as this might be, let’s be honest, it simply ain’t going to cut it with my toddler. So, in lieu of the halcyon days of yore, involving comedy clubs, stand-up and titillating West End plays, savoir faire is out and back to the thunder from down under it is.

I am, however, holding on to the hope that, in all of this breaking wind comicality, I’ve simply got it wrong! It’s, extremely, possible that I’ve completely misunderstood my son after all. An uncultivated sense of humour? No, of course not! He’s actually a toddler political satirist making a certain world leader, with a particularly windy name, the butt of all his jokes.

And, on that note, I’ll leave you with the very cream of political wind jokes the internet has to offer:

What does Mike Pence say when he farts in the White House?
It was a Trump.

BOOM. Happy Friday one and all!