Oh, the canned jokes. Thank you so much for all your contributions! They have provided Ava with a steady source of giggles and HungryMan with unpreventable eye rolls.

I think he has distributed more than one “groaner foul” in the past week. Personally, I think he reserves these for the knock, knock jokes that I create.

I don’t think that it helped matters that I tested out the interrupting starfish one on him. He wasn’t nearly as amused as Ava and I were. Perhaps it was too early in the morning.

The Dwayne one is my dad’s all-time favorite. It’s actually the first one I learned and the first one I taught Ava. She loves it and I love to hear her attempt to lisp.

The olive one has become a favorite as has the turkey one.

Watching Ava try to say “Moo” before I say “interrupting cow who?” has made me laugh so hard that I cry. Ava has a knack for interrupting that is unparalleled among her peers, a little weakness that we work on most every day.

However, the pre-planned break-in is more than she can handle. She hops up and down, flapping her arms with her lips pursed so hard that her face turns red. She’s a little tea pot ready to shout. Except she gets so steamed up that when she hears her cue all she can say is “Ah, Ah, Ah!” until finally the “Moo!” pops out of her like a screaming whistle top.

Oh, it is so fun!

Now teaching Ava the banana one has proven to be a serious tactical error. I should have gone with my first instinct to keep that one tightly wrapped around pieces of Laffy Taffy. That way school girl Ava would meet “Banana, who?” while chewing her way through a square of artificial banana flavored sugar in the company of like-minded classmates thus sparing this Mama of the endless repetition. (Three cheers for giggling girlfriends and run-on sentences).

And then Shari posted in the comments and I felt obligated to pass it on. At last count I have said “banana who” about a gazillion times. No lie.

On Wednesday, I said, “Banana, who?” all the way from our driveway to the mall parking lot two suburbs away. True story.

I finally began to answer, “banana, go away,” which caused an eruption of laughter from the backseat and had no affect on the persistent Banana whatsoever.

When the orange finally arrived on the scenes, she said, “Orange you so glad that I didn’t say ‘banana’ anymore!”

Oh, Ava, you have no idea.

We are headed to the library today to find some banana-free joke books.

At the very least, we have to keep HungyMan’s eyes spinning.