The M&M Story

I love laughing. Growing up, I frequently laughed at my father and brother with their running commentaries on most any subject presented. And now with our Big Mac around, we laugh....a lot.   Max has a natural penchant for humor. He's Brian and then some. It's sort of slapstick, Monty Python humor. Briggs, on the other hand, is a bit more serious.  I'm not sure he sees the whole point of the humorous stupidity. We watched Home Alone and Jim Carrey's Grinch this season, and Todd took the boys to see Yogi Bear.  Yes, we've had our fill of funny movies.  My favorite line from Max was, of course, a little more poetic:  "Mommy, the Grinch has fingers like sugar snap peas."   For a child who hates writing but makes ingenious connections, I think he may be a budding poet. Daddy Brian would be so proud :).

A few nights ago, we were eating dinner and all of a sudden Briggs pipes up:  "Think.  Don't drink and drive."  Okay.  Good conversation starter, considering it is the holidays and spirits typically flow.  But this is my six year old.  So we asked why and where he had learned that.....he read it on a billboard.  Makes sense.  But then he said, "Children and dogs should not drink and drive. It isn't safe." Children and dogs????  And are we talking orange juice or beer? Biting the inside of my cheeks, we pursued this line of reasoning with questions, mostly about the dogs and whether or not he understood to which drink the phrase referred. Apparently, he just figured it would be dangerous if children and dogs drink and drive because they might get hurt. We explained the difference between drinks like soda, coffee and orange juice (I had a panic for a minute because my kids have seen me drink coffee daily...as I am driving) and adult beverag...

Recently, I taught some poetry writing workshop lessons to Max's third grade class. It's been awhile since teaching elementary school kids, especially those under the age of 10.  I forgot what it was like to have a gaggle of little people follow you around the room itching to read their creative work or to motivate little boys who would rather play with dust bunnies than write. Such enthusiasm--with high schoolers, they would much rather talk to each other than to me--these little guys were buzzing with creativity and excitement over writing poetry.   One of Max's assignments was to write a poem about something at home and to write to the something--be it an object or an event or even a person. Dabble in personification. So he decided to write about Briggs.... Briggs [all about my brother] by Maxwell Maynor Fall 2010 Briggs you are loving you are kind you are smart in the mind. You are funny You are kind You are kinda Weird sometimes. I love you very much So I won’...