The above video is two minutes and 51 seconds long. If you don't have time to watch all of it, just skip to the last 30 seconds or so and see if you can find out WHY it is appropriate for this post...
CONFESSION:
In my mothering life, I AM TOO MUCH LIKE MARY POPPINS, and for heaven's sakes, I need to just let up, let loose, and LAUGH!!!! Too often I cop the 'tude of seriousness displayed so well here by Ms. Poppins (though I don't think I've ever had such a distaste for laughers. ... She comes off quite disturbed, doesn't she? Keeping the children from laughing, even!).
Come on, Mary, let's you and me lighten up! Unlike you, I'm not going to leave my kiddos when the wind changes, so I'd better learn to enjoy the time I have with them.
Laughter has become one of the instruments in my Mom-Sanity Tool Kit. I've learned that hitting myself over the head is a sure-fire giggle-maker!
It makes sense, doesn't it, for one of the letters in the word SMILE to mean Laugh? Laugh and smile aren't really synonyms -- they aren't completely interchangeable... I often smile without laughing. Yet if I laugh without smiling, I find that it's a poisonous kind of laugh -- the kind that hurts me or the people I'm around... ya know, the kind of laughing bullies do on the playground. I have to make a conscious effort not to allow that kind of laughter in my home. Period.
And sometimes I have to make a conscious effort to create the right kind of laughter -- the kind that bonds us all together, like Uncle Albert and the children. It doesn't quite seem right that laughter sometimes feels like a duty, but hey, at least it's a fun duty! And it's worth the effort!
When I'm having a hard time being motivated to laugh, it helps to think of it as multi-tasking, because somewhere I heard that laughing burns calories...
So, let's end with a joke! How about a good old-fashioned knock-knock joke.
You start it...
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