I was hunting for an earlier post - it's kind of busy around here and I thought I'd share an oldie-but-goodie.
The one I wanted (which, perhaps I only thought I put up) was about Little Princess' tale of us being chased by two hams. As I remember it, we were looking for a Christmas tree at a local nursery that used to have a few animals (a bit of a tradition, but the place is gone now..sigh) - and LP excitedly told her mom how "two hams chased us" (referring to a couple turkeys that weren't inside the fence with the other birds and did, in fact, run at us).
But I can't find the darn thing - or actually remember it very well. But I did find something else that made me laugh - so - here's my recycled post:
As a kid I loved the "Fractured Fairy Tales" segment of the Rocky and Bullwinkle TV Show. Remember those twists on the traditional stories?
I thought my enjoyment of the stories came from my sense of humor, but I'm rethinking that. I'm pondering the possibility that the pleasure (ohhhhh, way too many "p's" in this sentence!) I felt watching the show came more from a sense of familiarity. I believe my family and I (along with the Bullwinkle crew) have the fracture gene.
We fracture (often unwittingly) nursery rhymes, songs, sayings - in short, anything that gets in our path. I could tell you stories...and I probably will...
During a recent visit Little Princess was heard to sing some shocking words to "Bye Baby Bunting". Daddy did not go "a-hunting" - somehow the word "hump" got in there, which is just NOT a proper nursery rhyme! Not wanting to embarrass LP I didn't correct her, but sang along a number of times and substituted the conventional (though less interesting) wording because there's only so far you can fracture a nursery rhyme before it just isn't OK !!
Little Princess lives in a house with older children, so lately her musical influences have leaned more toward the Britney Spears type, and less toward nursery rhymes or kiddy songs. But I still find it strange that she could forget some of the words to classics like "Mary Had a Little Lamb". It's got to be the fracture gene at work.
One morning during that same visit, as LP sat on my lap snuggling and singing all kinds of things with me (including tidbits from tv commercials that she taught me, which we fractured the daylights out purposely!), we had a discussion about the aforementioned "Mary Had a Little Lamb".
Somehow, in Little Princess' mind, Mary had gone from having a little lamb to having a little man. Now I'm all for that - I mean, Mary has my blessing. But I thought I ought to at least talk about it with LP, since her future SAT scores might be jeopardized if she didn't know that most folks remember Mary's lamb when they're singing about her - not her little man.
Of course, I'm also guilty of kicking it up a notch when it comes to "Mary Had a Little Lamb". I almost always trip on my tongue when I'm singing that little ditty (which, btw, doesn't occur that often - unless LP is visiting) because the lyrics that come to me first are not the original ones.
My father's fractured version of "Mary" (not unwitting), which is my default version, went:
Mary had a little lamb,
she also had a bear.
I often saw her little lamb,
but never saw her bear (bare).Little Princess catches on quickly, so we were able to have many laughs around Mary's little man predicament. Such as: If Mary did, indeed, have a little man - what in the world was "his fleece"? And why did the children laugh and play when they saw him at school? And, for that matter, why did he follow her to school?
We found these all to be great sources of belly laughter. Ah, humor - and singing (music again! - I still say it can save your life) - and snuggling - and bizarre family influences - I'm awash in gratitude!!
