You Gotta Laugh….
You gotta laugh or you’ll cry.
This is my parenting motto.
It goes hand in hand with ‘assign positive intent‘, and ‘it’s never all bad‘.
Along with those phrases it repeats in my head often.
Small child draws a really fabulous, artistic picture… on the freshly painted wall.
You gotta laugh…
Children scream from the backseat that there is a HUGE spider and demand that you stop immediately. You pull off the freeway unpack the entire car to look for the spider. You finally find it, and it’s tiny.
You gotta laugh…
Child moans from the couch, “I don’t feel well” so you launch yourself across the room and attempt to catch an enormous amount of vomit in your tiny cupped hands, which of course doesn’t work.
You gotta laugh…
You spend an hour cleaning the kitchen, you even wipe out the fridge and wash down the cupboards, then your child drops a tub of yogurt as they get it out of the fridge and it explodes as it hits the floor.
You gotta laugh…
If you don’t laugh, if you let these things get you down, the weight of parenting and the every day monotony will crush your spirit.
It crushes mine every now and then when I can’t manage to see the lighter side.
When I get caught up in a cycle of ‘everything is going wrong’.
When I feel like every decision I make is a bad one.
When I declare that the universe has it in for me.
When I forget to laugh.
And then my four year old punches his sister, who is three times his size, and says, in his toughest voice, ‘I bet that hurt!’.
And suddenly it bursts forth from me as uncontrollable irrational laughter. It spills out of me as tears run down my cheeks and I can’t catch my breath or even begin to explain.
My family stand and stare at me with open mouths wondering if I have finally lost my mind but I haven’t…
It’s just that you gotta laugh, or you’ll cry.
Tell me about your ‘gotta laugh’ moments.
Oh yes! I say this often too.
I had a moment in my house this morning when it was discovered that the younger sister had been wearing the big brother’s sports shirt earlier in the week and it was not clean! It is the only one that fits him. There are no other options on a sport Friday. She is not the cleanest sister. It was a little grubby. He had to wear it. I laughed…later!!!
What a great post and so great to reflect on these moments.
I remember treating my little girl to a babyccino for doing her first little wee in the toilet. I ordered myself a huge coffee as my own parenting reward for the moment. As soon as they arrived to the table my little girl begins groaning and shouting at the top of her lungs ‘I’ve gotta go to the toilet! I’ve gotta pooooooh’. Over and over she shouted for everyone to hear. You see, I’d always encouraged her to tell me if she needed to go. Of course it also turned out to be a day that I’d forgotten the spare nappy and had no wipes. DOH!
I totally subscribe to the “you gotta laugh” school of thought.
I do try to remember this…though I’m not always great at it! Every Valentine’s day we have a big candle-lit family dinner. I make any heart shaped food I can dream up, the kids help me set the table super fancy, and we go all out making the cheesiest, sweetest family dinner every. well, two years ago, two weeks after I’d had our fourth wee one, I made our traditional Valentine’s dinner and was just putting the finishing touches on the table when my then 2 year old climbed up on the table and spilled an entire jug of iced tea all over the table and floor. I think that time I laughed, cried, and took a few deep breaths in a paper bag :)
my 15mo was having “nakey time” one night to help get rid of a diaper rash while I was making dinner. I asked my husband to step into the kitchen to peel potatoes for me quickly when we heard our kiddo start making a lot of noise. Turned around and he was signing “all done” with a very serious look on his little face in front of a nice fresh pile of poop on the carpet and wee all over one of his favourite books and a blanket.
I lost my dinner helper to poop clean-up and we didn’t eat until almost bed time, and EVERYONE was cranky by then, had to do an extra load of laundry, but it’s still somehow absolutely hilarious.
My daughter painted on the TV with poop. I laughed, I cleaned.
Two days later we had big black spots on the TV. I laughed and checked the bank balance.
My husband and I are trying to get our kids to help tidy more. The 3.5 year old pipes up. ‘Dad, your being an arse’. I put on a stern face, said we don’t say those sorts of things, turned around and laughed.
Went grocery shopping a few days ago, picked up a trailer of compost from garden suppliers, shovelled all by myself, picked kids up from kinder, dropped trailer back at garden centre, come home remembered groceries, son climbs I to the back of the wagon, looses balance and POP goes the ice cream which had become liquid. I cleaned and laughed
This is a good reminder, and a good strategy as well! When my toddler won’t listen to me at bed time, he does the funniest antics, and I just laugh because I know he’s growing up so fast.
My motto for parenting teens is “this too shall pass”!!!!