Our Little Movie Connoisseur and Comedian

Cooper LOVES movies and he LOVES to make people laugh.

I think it's our fault because back when he was just shy of turning two, we took him on his first road trip and to help us all survive the trip we bought him a portable DVD player and brought along all the kid DVDs we could gather up, plus several new ones we had bought to keep him interested and occupied. After all, we were driving from Los Angeles to Seattle and back.  Our plan worked, or so we thought. But from that point forward, it was all movies, all the time. Oops.

And, Bob and I love comedy. Movies, stand-up, sit-coms, you name it.

Thankfully, Coop spends most of his days being very active, and away from the TV/movie screen. He attends all-day pre-K and on weekends we try to have fun adventures out of the house. But when we're home and we don't have a play date or an activity to do, he's begging to watch a movie.

Coop has plenty of options when it comes to movies. He has an iPad with Netflix and with tons of movies loaded into the video library, plus a huge library of DVDs to watch on any one of the (too) many TVs in the house.  He has so many of his own movies that it is hard to believe when he dares to utter the words "I'm bored with my movies, can we go buy a new one?" The answer is almost always "no", followed by some crying and conversation about how blessed he is to have so much already when so many kids don't have any movies or toys.  But, he's 4 and that doesn't make the tears go away.

He seemed to begin to figure out, after hearing me repeat myself that I'm not buying anymore movies, that he must learn to be content and grateful for what he has. Until he started saying "Can I watch one of your grown up funny movies?"  He sure is a smart one, isn't he?

Coop's current favorites are The Three Stooges, Back To School, Dodgeball, and Galaxy Quest. I know, I know. Not exactly appropriate for a 4 year old.  But before you judge me for my poor parental judgment, please understand that my 4 year old is pretty astute and understands that movies are make believe and that often they are not appropriate for repeating.  And he even has pretty high standards himself. In fact, if you were to ask him if he likes the show Sponge Bob Square Pants he will tell you that no, he doesn't, and if you ask him why he will say it's because they're mean on there and that it isn't funny when people (characters) are mean. When watching a movie like Back To School or Dodgeball, he cracks up and then says to me "Mommy that is really funny but it's not ok to do that for real."  Since he gets it, even though he's young, I let him watch some of these grown up movies.  We talk about it so that there's ongoing reinforcement about what's make believe, what's funny and why, what's OK to repeat and what is not.

I think it's pretty neat that Coop shares his parents' love for slapstick humor. He walks around saying in his silly sing-song tone "Hello, hello, hello!" with a big smile on his face, and sometimes taking a bow.  I'm sure one of these days he'll slip and say/do something inappropriate and when he does, we'll address it. Till then, don't be surprised if you hear him quoting Rodney Dangerfield, and when he does I hope you'll laugh because much like the late great Rodney, Cooper  loves to make people laugh. :)

Proverbs 17:22 tells us that a cheerful heart is good medicine, and scientific studies tell us that laughter indeed boosts the immune system. So here in our house, we encourage laughter.  What makes you laugh?