Posted on

Laughter – much more than medicine!

Laughter IS the best medicine, I completely agree.  In our house, and hopefully in yours too, laughter is so much more.  Laughter can defuse an argument, keep the peace, soothe the frazzled and energize the weary.

When laughter is shared, it has the power to unite people who were once opposed.

Laughter in our home is the stuff of music and happy hearts – I love hearing my kids and my husband share a moment of laughter.  When we are all laughing, I am reminded of my childhood and growing up in my family.  Laughing was a regular part dinner time especially, I would save a humorous moment to share at dinner and particularly enjoyed if I could make both my parents laugh.

My husband is a great “Laugh Out Loud” laugh-er.  I can be in another room, and hear him laughing at something on tv, or something the kids said and I don’t feel the need to know what everyone thinks is so funny.  I’m content to just absorb the sound of mirth in my home, I welcome it because it signals that all is right for the moment.

Laughter is powerful.  My husband and I can be on the verge of a fight, all the sudden one of us will quip the perfect thing with just the right sense of timing that makes the other laugh and we can’t stay mad.  Especially because the fight is usually going to be about something small, usually of little consequence and basically stupid.

But we all know, laughter also has a dark side.

It’s not fun to be the one laughed at and I know we’ve gone there too.  It’s a delicate balance at times. Poking fun at each other can start innocently and then suddenly it slides to insensitive moments.   When it happens as invariably, it must, we try to pivot the conversation to teaching moments with the kids.  We remind them of other times and situations, so everyone remember when they felt the same hurts and move quicker to forgiveness.   More importantly, I want the kids learning how to share laughter with, and avoid laughing at – with lots of practice in the safe space of our home.

I love that my children are raised in an environment where they see parents who are not afraid to laugh at themselves.  Sharing laughter is an important part of creating strong bonds of friendship too.   My sister once told me that she believes your closest friends will share your sense of humor.  This has largely been true of my friends all my life, and I would add that you can be friends who don’t share your same sense of humor,  but I think your close friends will, at a minimum,  have a strong appreciation for your particular brand of humor in life.

LAUGHTER, YOU ARE WELCOME HERE!

Posted on

Family Names

One day, one of the kids learned of Native American Indian names with English translations like ‘sitting bull.’  It was a dinner table topic that night; resulting in choosing names for everyone with representative animal and verb.  (Actually an infinitive with a  present participle!)

We had so much fun picking names to characterize each of our kids, and pretty much got unanimous agreement on these.  Keep in mind, this was a few years ago and before we even thought about moving to a farm.  These names came up at dinner tonight, and everyone thinks my given name is a riot now that we are here on the farm.

  • My eldest is ‘Slouching Rabbit’ – When I was pregnant with my daughter we called her ‘Thumper’ and bought her a little stuffed thumper from the Disney movie, Bambi.  Around the time of her name creation, she would not sit up at the table! Pre-teen!!
  • My middle son is ‘Farting Bear’ -He has always been my cuddle bear – he always needed to touch and I LOVE this about him.  He can also be gruff as he’s getting older, but most of the time he’s sweet teddy-bear type – he picked the descriptive action for himself and got a good laugh from all the boys (including Dad).  It stuck.
  • Burping Fish – When my youngest was a newborn we saw the movie ‘Finding Nemo’. In one scene Dory, played by Ellen Degeneres, finds a jellyfish and claims him as her pet and names it ‘squishy’.  My husband and I started calling the baby, ‘Squishy’ so we tried to use ‘squishy fish’ as his animal name – but our kids overruled us. You see, squishy can belch like he’s doing it for a competition. So that was that.
  • Spanking Buffalo – On a trip driving through Amish Country my husband kept joking with the kids that he was looking for an Amish Store to buy an Amish spanking machine (completely made up). My youngest son was just talking and kept repeating it, “a spanking machine?”  My husband’s always been a fan of buffaloes, so that name stuck.
  • Screaming Chicken – Now it isn’t exactly how it sounds… ahem. My husband has always referred to me as ‘chicken’. When I stood with my hands on my hips, he said I was holding out my wings (elbows), when I was cold and got goosebumps, he’d point out my ‘chicken skin’. Now that we live on the farm and actually have chickens, and I’ve heard them scream, I should be offended!

Well that rounds out our human menagerie of five, completely outnumbered these days by the animals. I should start a count one of these days… right now we have 8 goats, lots of chickens, and 4 dogs.

Posted on

Another reason my children have a headless mother

I’d just switched a load of laundry, picked up after the kids from various lunches they’d made themselves, washed dishes that I didn’t dirty, and pulled the sheets off my son’s bed. Said son was playing outside instead of doing what I’d asked him to do. I was also concerned about thawing meat for dinner that I still needed to cook when my dog jumped up on me which usually means, “I need to go potty outside.”

I asked Charlie to take the dog out and his first words out of that mouth were, “I already took off my shoes.”

I should have addressed that, but I didn’t respond because I thought my head might pop off.

Moments later a fight began between Susan and Charlie that would absolutely send me over that edge.

Like most of their fights, I’m not sure who started it and what it was really all about, but she started in on Charlie for picking up her dog. I heard, “Mommy, tell Charlie to put down my dog! Charlie! Put her down, now!!!!”

and I lost it.,,

Rant started with, I’m not telling anyone to NOT pick up a single thing! Everyone can pick up ALL the dogs as far as I’m concerned. While they are at it there is a host of additional things they should be picking up…
their rooms.
the shoes and socks that are kicked off and strewn over the floor.
whatever they got out to play with,
work on,
make,
or eat!
And if a dog gets picked up in the process – so be it!

Head – popped – off!!

Now my kids are probably hiding from the furious dragon their mother had morphed into. I’m currently standing over the dishes in the sink breathing my dragon fire and fantasizing. Oh, for the bliss to hear, “Mommy, Charlie won’t let me pick up the trash because he is already doing it!” Or “Mommy I’ve picked up everything I can, and I need something else to do – could I clean the bathroom for you?” Be still, my heart…oh wait, I’m just dreaming this dragon’s dream.

Posted on

What the….cluck, cluck, Maaaa is that?

Here’s a kid-rule in my house!  If any music or video uses a bad word, they can’t listen anymore. A few weeks ago Charlie heard me listening to Billy Joel and told me I had to turn it off because he sang a bad word. I missed it….but ugh!  Sure enough – my buddy Billy really did sing a cussword!

A few weeks later, on a road trip to Alabama Susan and I are playing Josh Groban and singing. Charlie is NOT a Josh G. fan and he starts complaining and insisting we need to turn the song off.

Charlie: Mom, you have to turn it off he’s using bad words.
Me: Charlie, he’s singing in Italian! He’s not saying bad words.
Charlie: Yes, I searched it up and it says, (pretending to read off his phone) “Does Josh Groban use bad words? Yes, in his Italian songs every word that starts with a ‘D’ is a swear word. Josh Groban swears all the time!”
Susan: Let me see that!
Charlie: No, I’m still reading it….Oh Mom, this is bad, we can’t listen to it.

Susan and I ignored Charlie and kept listening to Josh Groban music. A few moments later I hear a bird tweeting sound.

Me: Whats that?!!! (A little freaked because on a road trip, EVERY bizarre sound is something wrong with my car!!!)
Susan: It’s Charlie.
Me: Charlie! What are you doing? (The sound has now changed to louder various chicken noises.)
Charlie: I’m using this to ‘beep’ out all the cussing – so we don’t hear the bad words… bro, this is a lot of work. (talking to Christian who was just enjoying the whole thing.)

Josh Groban with some chickens is annoying and Charlie almost lost his phone but later he switched to goat sounds and I have to admit that was pretty funny. I tried to be stern, but Susan was sitting next to me, caught me laughing and ratted me out.