Inside Jokes: When Only Your Family is Laughing

As your kids get older, you will find that you accumulate habits that you only perform in the company of your family. These include but are not limited to songs you made up, nicknames, embarrassing stories, funny jokes and interpretive dances. Believe it or not, these are important family bonding exercises, especially the ones that everyone in the family knows.

I have several nicknames for my wife. I have called her some of these since we were dating. Very few people know them however my daughter caught on to a couple of them when she was 2. It was hilarious to hear her refer to her mother as no-i-am-not-telling-you-the-name-she-will-kill-me. The best part was that she knows that it is not something that anyone else calls her mother. She giggles every time she says it, and she even knows that it is funnier if she does not do it all the time.

Over the weekend, our first whole-family joke surfaced. It was my wife’s birthday and we all went out for ice cream. On the drive back home, my daughter spotted a sign for the local farmer’s market. It was the typical sign that says something like “Farmer’s Market in Town Center. Every Sunday 9-1” and then has the classic, poorly-painted-on pictures of vegetables. My (now 3 year old) daughter says “Hey mom and dad! There’s corn, tomato and *muffled something* .” I looked over to see the sign and sure enough, there was a tomato and a piece of corn and then some black, undistinguishable vegetable that could only have been eggplant or cow pie.

“Sweet Pea? What the heck is patonnapy /pa ton’ ah pee/?” She starts to giggle. “I don’t know but I saw corn, tomato and patonnapy!” We all started laughing and talking about all the times we had previously eaten patonnapy. My wife, in a slightly loud and silly voice repeated my daughter: “I see corn, tomato and…” (everyone says) “PATONNAPY”. And here is where the joke became a whole family event: The baby, who is 18 months, old joined in “Tonnapeeeeeeee! Tonnnaaapeeeeee!”.

To all the uber-noodads out there, these are the kinds of shenanigans, tomfoolery and ballyhoo you can look forward to! When inside jokes come out, be sure to keep them current. Sharing little secrets like these help strengthen your family bond.