"Funny joke"

"Ike make funny joke! Ike make silly joke!"

So what's funny to an almost-two-year-old?

Well, for one, he likes it when something is very evidently and only slightly not correct. "That's not right!" he'll announce if you purposefully (or otherwise) get a song lyric wrong. And he likes wordplay -- funny-sounding words, as I've mentioned before, but also words with meanings that can be manipulated. Also, he likes to riff on a theme, kind of like David Letterman -- he takes a core idea and repeats it, eventually adding slight changes. (He also enjoys less intellectual humor, like if I pretend to fall down while I'm chasing him.)

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Today he got a little fussy as we were walking back from viewing the Grand Prismatic Spring, so I was carrying him in hopes of improving his mood (also so he wouldn't step off the boardwalk into the hot springs). "Oh, my Mama," he said quietly as he rested his head on my shoulder. Then, apparently thinking fondly of me, he said, "Ike name Nicole."

"Your name is Nicole?" I asked him.

"No," he said, "Mama name Nicole."

Right after that he said, "Mama name Craig. Mama name Craig!" We laughed at that for a bit, and to keep him going I asked him what my last name was. After he answered correctly, he began looking all around for comedic answers to the question. I could see him searching the landscape as he said things like, "Mama name Nicole Flower. Mama name Nicole Rock." We giggled at these names together. Then, as the boardwalk turned and came closer to the bubbling hot Excelsior Geyser, he exclaimed, with the joy of someone who has just topped himself, "Mama name Nicole Steam!"

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Tonight before bed Isaac and I were reading Ask Mr. Bear, and (naturally) the goose in the book says honk honk. To my surprise, Isaac laughed at this. I didn't understand why, so he pointed at the chicken and said, "Chicken say beep beep!" When I continued to look at him blankly, he explained, "Ike make funny joke!"

As I tried to keep reading the book, he repeated the joke -- a lot. The goose said honk honk, and all the other animals in the book (chicken, sheep, cow, etc.) said beep beep instead of their usual noises (cluck cluck, baa baa, moo moo, etc.). Then I understood that it was a joke about horns. Not horns on an animal -- horns on a vehicle.

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Do you remember Teacher Apple? After not mentioning it for about a month, last week Isaac looked down at his lunch and said, "Teacher Strawberry. Teacher Nut. Teacher Cheese!" Then he said, combining it with another favorite joke, "Ka-cheese-a!"

No? Ah, well, I guess you had to be there. Or maybe it would be funnier if you'd heard him repeat it about 25 times.