What "Corny" Means

Joel had to accompany me to my Weight Watchers meeting yesterday (poor little guy). What 7 year old enjoys that?--
especially when, at the end, the leader says to the group, "Okay, now, I want everyone to stand and learn a cheer."

A cheer? Seriously? My cheerleading days ended in 10th grade. I'm grown up now. I don't pay 12 bucks a week to feel like an idiot. But if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. So we stood.

The leader gets everyone to stand and cross their arms below the waist, wrists up. Then she leads us in the "cheer" : we uncross them in a (less than) exuberant sweep while saying "hip, hip, away". That's it.

A few minutes later, after we were in the van, Joel says, "Hip, hip hooray? Mom, that cheer was dumb."

"Well, it wasn't 'hip, hip, hooray, it was 'hip, hip, away, as in 'make our big hips go away.'"

'That's just--"

"Corny?" I asked.

"Yeh, corny. You know what 'corny' means? It means "clever in a dumb sort of way.' "

(Billy?) Joel's Sweetness

My sweet boy was snuggling me at naptime the other day. I've been dieting and told him, "Guess what? I've lost seven pounds already!"

"No!" he said. "Don't lose weight. I love you just the way you are."

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Then I said, "Aww, honey, you're so sweet, but I need to lose weight. I'm happy I've lost 7 so far."

He stroked my side kind of analytically. "Yep, you feel 7-ish," he said.