June 10. Day 161. You have to laugh

I'm sure that most young children, if they ever stop to think about it at all, assume that the customs, sayings and routines of their family are probably shared by all families. It is only much later that one starts to question whether your own family is "normal" and in fact if there's any such thing as a normal family in any case. Certainly I never stopped to ponder whether other families called each other ridiculous nicknames, lived in fear of the wooden spoon (which was often threatened but never rarely if ever used), or had a specially carved indent in the concrete driveway perfectly shaped to hold a macadamia nut still so you could crack it open with a hammer. We did, so I guess I thought so did everybody. So I also never questioned the reason why kookaburras laugh. My mother always said it meant someone had wet the bed. While I never believed that I rather thought it was what all parents jokingly said in much the same way as they may have linked eating crusts and curly hair. I don't think anyone actually believed it but people said it anyway. I feel certain the bed wetting yarn didn't enjoy the same widespread appeal but to this day every time I see a kookaburra I think of bed wetters which is rather unfortunate for poor kookaburra. In my household now bedwetting jokes are normally associated with early rising. If the teen emerges before the alarm on a school day or before mid morning on other days my husband will always say "what happened? Did you wet the bed?" Today there was both a laughing kookaburra and an early rising teen on our property. Fortunately for all there was no bed wetting involved. A nice sunny spot on the pool fence gave the kookaburra something to crow about and a deluge of assessment due before school prompted the teen cave early evacuation. Mind you while there's not a lot to laugh about in washing wee from sheets dealing with assignment angst is hardly a bundle of laughs either. I just need to grin and bear it for one more day and then I can send drama teen out to sun himself by the pool and then we can all get some sleep.