And Then He Laughs

I'm not afraid to say what every other mother on the planet is usually thinking: being a mom is hard and it is NOT always kisses and hugs. And when I say "hard", I don't mean "difficult" or "challenging". This is the kind of hard that makes you ache when your child is hurting. It can make you want to scream into your pillow one second and kiss a boo boo the very next. It's a crazy kind of hard. It's the kind of hard that can make you feel like you may very well, finally, once and for all, LOSE IT. It's the kind of hard that hurts when we have to be the "bad guy" because we want our little ones to turn into "good guys".
Sometimes an entire day can pass before you realized you blinked. Other days, the clock on the wall, my circular roman numeral clock that everyone seems to have trouble reading except for me, can stay stuck at 2pm for 5 hours. How does that happen!?
And then there are the days when you just don't feel well and need to lie down. You can do this, in theory. Something will be broken or someone will be injured, but it is possible.

And then...


And then he laughs. No, he giggles and cackles in such a way that I feel like I could fly just being near him. I'm infected by it. I'm taken to a world with animals, balloons, bugs, balls, water slides, bikes and running... running through fields. I'm in his world. Does he realize that his laughter can draw me into his perfect world and I would do anything to stay, one more moment. Landon has turned into such a rascal lately, pranking us, joking around with us... Telling him to "stop" in between gasps of air from laughing hysterically doesn't exactly drive the point home. I should probably be more of a disciplinary figure during these times, but when my 2 year old is chasing me around his room with a booger on his finger, laughing so hard he is crying, all I can do is run even faster and laugh all the way. And the laughter, the sweet medicine, takes over our bodies and we collapse onto the floor together, exhausted from fun. Just fun, not stress or chores. Sure those things were exhausting me just moments before, but when he laughs... we all go too and nothing else matters.