Sometimes I think the hardest part about being a parent--excepting midnight asthma attacks and other Truly Scary Things--is keeping a straight face.
My in-laws are in town from California. We enjoy having them here, and (I hope) they like being here. We were all sitting around the dinner table last night when the Con-man...how to put this delicately...broke wind for a duration that can only be described as exceptional. Now this is a very tricky moment. To laugh would be to encourage future outbursts, as it were, but to ignore it would be impossible. Carefully contorting our faces into what we hoped were expressions of non-surprise, we asked him if he might like to visit the bathroom.
When I went in to check on him later, the first thing he said to me--in as rhetorical a fashion as a 3-year-old can muster--"How long was that fluffer, Mama?" in a very enthused voice. It was pretty clear that our studied lack of response had wounded him utterly.
I'm still debating whether to tell you all the other straight-face story. I fear Google in 12 years.