It all started when I was about three years old, and we had just moved to a new brick duplex in the middle of town. As the youngest of four children, I was a bit stubborn and very chatty. My mother used to say that I skipped over mama and daddy when learning to talk, and my first words were “but mother……” Pleading my case as a toddler. No wonder I was drawn to a legal career. At three, I was still napping in a crib. At least that was the theory.

My bedroom was on the back of the new house, on the second floor. It had several windows, and a nice view of several surrounding homes, including the other half of the duplex. The windows were open during nap time because we didn’t have air conditioning. To say I didn’t want to take naps would be a bit of an understatement, but my mother tried to get me to sleep anyway. And I was the fourth kid, so not really negotiable. Into the crib I went.

Since I couldn’t negotiate my way out of the nap with my mom, I decided to appeal to our new neighbors, or anyone else within earshot. My plaintiff wailing of “help me, help me, will somebody PLEASE help me?” wafted out of the windows every time I was asked to sleep. The wailing got louder the longer I was in the crib. I don’t think I slept very often, and luckily child protection services were never called. But my flair for the dramatic was well established even at that age. And our presence in the neighborhood was certainly established right after the move. Luckily there were several other children my age, and we all eventually became good friends. That was especially true once those pesky naps went away.

My other most notable incident occured when I was four. My mother and I went to mass with my grandmother in the small Iowa town where she lived, and we were related to most members of the church. I wasn’t enjoying the services very much ( it was all in Latin at that time, and the priest faced the wall, so really, can you blame me?) and I was talking too much. My mom gave me a rosary to distract me. Rather than calm down, I decided to walk to the end of our empty pew, swing the rosary like a lasso over my head, and say “Get ready Jesus, you’re going for a ride!”. It got some big laughs, and again, in my defense, rosaries do kind of look like ropes. I also knew that Jesus was part of the rosary, so there’s that. This was also before any formal religious education had been imparted to me via the Baltimore Catechism. My grandmother was less impressed, and told my mom she felt sorry for her. And it was a long time before I graced the pews of that church again.

I don’t have any memory of these entertaining moments, but they were shared a lot over the years, so I know them well. Let’s just say my reputation for being a funny, dramatic child preceded me in my large extended family.

So my sense of humor has been with me for years, and it has served me well. If you can see the funny side of things, it helps the time pass quickly and makes people smile. And that is the goal of my blog. Follow the site using the email link on the right, or check back every week for more Humor From Heartland on the Funny Nanna site. I’m just getting started!