Laughter

I woke up in a really bad mood today. There was no particular reason, but it didn’t help that I’d slept thru my snooze alarm and was running late. In hindsight chirping birds was probably not a good alarm choice.  Of all the days today was not the one I would have picked to wake up late.  I had a 9:20 appointment in Cedar Park with my endocrinologist which meant I couldn’t do school drop offs in my pj’s. I hurried everyone as best I could while throwing clothes on myself. I barely made it to my appointment. 

While we are waiting for my doctor Laurel and Rhodes start playing their newest twin game. Twin games are games that only Laurel and Rhodes understand and enjoy.  This one is particularly annoying. One of them will randomly say something gross (like “Poop is yummy” for example) and then they dissolve into laughter. When the laughter dies down the other twin takes a turn being disgusting. We’ve tried getting them to stop and explained that it’s rude to no avail. I start to remind them that this game sucks (I’m paraphrasing) when my doctor walks in. They go back to their iPads and my doctor and I begin chatting.  

I’m in the middle of asking a question when Laurel pipes up with “My mommy makes the stinkiest toots!”. The doctor and I go silent. Laurel and Rhodes turn into laughing hyenas. I want to die. I want to crawl into my purse and hide. I don’t know where to look because I cannot make eye contact with the man sitting in front of me. I’m starting to sweat and I hope that I just melt into a puddle of embarrassment. Before I finish my story I need to explain something about my doctor. He is very very smart, but he doesn’t have much of a bed side manner. He isn’t one to ask how the Holidays were or how my weekend was. He provides excellent care but I don’t expect anything warm from him. Ok, back to the awkwardness: After what feels like an hour he clears his throat and says:

“Little girl, did you just say something to me?”

Laurel looks at him with big eyes and offers up a meek “no” 

“I think I heard you say something about your mommy making stinky toots”

Laurel giggles and whispers “yes”

At this point I have my hands over my face and am mentally spending Laurel’s college fund. 

“Little girl, whoever smelt it dealt it”

At that I throw my hands down and the adults break down in hysterical laughter.  I will never look at my endocrinologist the same way and I’m sure visa versa. 

My day continued to be one big mess. After one of our errands Rhodes fell in a parking lot. He skinned his knee and demanded a bandaid. I, of course, didn’t have one. After unsuccessfully trying to talk him out of needing one I made do with what I had.  

Here is R’s giant bandaid:

He was happy and the crying stopped. We moved on with our day and forgot about our makeshift wound cover. 

I’m in HEB looking at my creamer options when I hear “young man, what’s that on your leg?”. Shit. Shit. Shit. Do I turn around or move down a refrigerator case and pretend he’s not mine? I’m not given a choice when the elderly gentleman begins questioning me: 

“Are you his mom? What is that? Is that...”

I interrupt him with “Yes! It IS a giant bandaid! He fell and hurt his knee and needed this to feel better!” 

“Oh, Ooooooh! Yes, I see! Well, that’s a fine looking bandaid. I’m glad to see that you were able to save his leg, Mom.”  

With that he saluted us and we parted ways. I grabbed my creamer and went straight to the check out line. As I’m loading bags into the car I see our new friend from the store walking up. He’s got a small bag in his hand and a big smile on his face. 

“I’m glad I found you! I bought the young man some real bandaids and put a little something in there for you too, Mom.  You’re doing good. Hang in there. Thanks for making me laugh today.” 

After loading the car I peek in the bag to find Star Wars bandaids and a Hershey bar. My eyes fill with tears and my heart with gratitude. I stop and say a prayer of thanks for the sweet man at HEB. 

Both situations could have been very different if it weren’t for the gift of laughter. Embarrassment threatened to take over one moment while judgement could have easily ruled the other.  I’m so thankful that the people I was interacting with had light hearts. They were able to see the humor in both situations and kept me from feeling the weight of my bad mood. Let people lift you up. Feed off of their positivity when you just can’t find yours. Borrow their joy. If you look, you’ll notice there’s plenty to go around.