LIFE, ACCORDING TO BLAKE
Seth: Blake, please don’t talk with your mouth full!
Blake: But you’re doing it right now!
Me: (snort, giggle, guffaw)
Seth:  Honey, you may be excused.

They say laughter is the best medicine. (Who is this mysterious “they” we always seem to refer to, anyway? We begin so many sentences with “they say”…)  Ah, as usual, I digress…

Well, I happen to disagree with “they.”  Laughter is NOT always the best. In fact, it has gotten me in trouble all my life.  During my youth, I was sent to eat my dinner on my parents’ porch several times because I couldn’t stop laughing at something one of my siblings had done. (Suffice it to say that my parents were more-than-likely not nearly as amused as I was.  I know this because the porch they sent me to had a hole in the floor and felt like it was attached to the house by 2 rusty nails!) As an adult, I have even been excused from my own dinner table for laughing at Blake!  Granted, it was usually because Seth was attempting to correct something Blake did or said and I was… well… let’s just say I wasn’t helpful.

Before now, I never understood my mom saying (well, yelling, actually) “just because I’m laughing does NOT mean I’m not angry with you!”  Apparently it’s genetic, because laughing has gotten me into more than a few parenting predicaments. There I am, really unhappy with Blake, and about to dole out some discipline… and, in an instant, he looks at me with those smiling eyes and flashes that infectious smile, and I know I’m going to be the one in trouble.

Blake has a great laugh, and I love laughing with him.  It’s not always the best time to do it, but I enjoy all the same.

LIFE LESSON:   Sometimes it’s a good time to laugh. Sometimes it’s not ideal. The most important thing is to never forget how.