Underpants are very silly

Moomin, who is obssessed with growing up to be the writing partner of Dav Pilkey, thought of a book. A few days ago he was putting underwear on his head while describing the book to me. It will be “The Best Book Ever” and will be called “Silly Underpants Stuff.” Over the last few days a song developed, a sing-song chant.

Silly underpants stuff
Silly underpants stuff
Underpants on a horse
Underpants on a truck
Underpants on your head!

I was sick, and then went to a PTA meeting and an editorial meeting. Then there was homework.

Today we finally did the photo shoot, which was silly beyond what I had imagined. We giggled so hard we both had asthma attacks. He knows about Flickr, and tagging, because we look on there to find stuff like “starfish,” “Jupiter,” or “orcas” and I have explained that all sorts of people put the pictures they take on the computer and then upload them onto the Internet. He only has a vague concept of the Internet, but then again that’s true for all of us who haven’t been reading RFCs for the last 30 years. So he asked me to put the pictures on the computer, and print them out. Fine.

“And then Auntie Minnie can see them, and then, she will make some, and we will see them… because they will have the sort of title like a book, of “Silly Underpants Stuff” and we can click on it… and other people can make them and send them to us….” It is very Web 2.0 of him. Suddenly I’m thinking, “Hell, is he going to run for President someday and people will be calling him “President Underpants”? One hope is that every other kid of his generation will have equally silly and overdocumented pasts. The other hope is that he will grow up to be so silly by nature that this episode pales in comparison.

Now you understand better that comment his teacher made on the last report card – it was something like this: “We all enjoy Moomin’s unique sense of humor, and how happy it makes him, even if he can’t explain what he’s laughing about.”

It was a great afternoon. We had a lot of fun being ridiculous!