Worth Laughing About!

I have to say, one of the best things about being Abbey’s mom is getting to see her sense of humor.   The things that make her laugh are so out of the ordinary.  She has THE BEST belly laugh! It's this low toned rumble, and she has a dimple on her left cheek that comes out when she smiles really big or laughs. Here are some of the things about her that make US laugh.

For as long as I can remember, Abbey has laughed at “mishaps.” My husband and I like to call it her “death and peril” humor.  We were turning the TV channel once and there was a person hanging onto the edge of a cliff with their feet dangling and screaming…I thought she was going to pass out from laughing so hard.  We quickly discovered that The Three Stooges is one of her favorite shows.  Anytime someone gets bonked upside the head with a 2x4 she’s practically sliding off the couch in hysterics.  If you are in danger, she is laughing about it. 

At some point in the early years, our youth group kids discovered that pretending to knock each other over would set her off.   They quickly made a point of doing it on purpose just to get her to laugh.  Then she figured out that she could walk up to them and barely touch them and they would pretend to fall backward.  Such power!  Such fun!  It was all well and good until she started grabbing other children by the clothes to pull them down, and then proceeded to crack up while they were crying.  We put a quick stop to that one. 

Or there’s the back slapping.  Sometimes in the middle of church she will get excited and start slapping Ryan (or perhaps the people in the pew in front of us) on the back.  Only Abbey doesn’t know how to do “gentle” or “quiet” so it’s extremely loud and rough.  The commotion of getting her to stop makes her laugh.  Speaking of church, she thinks passing the offering plate and communion are hilarious also.  When the elders line up at the back of the church to come forward, she starts winding up for a laugh.  Sometimes when they pass the communion plate she tries to stand up or sneak in a “hi” wave to one of the elders….I like to think of it as celebrating the joy of taking communion.  We should all have such joy to give our money and remember Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for us!!  If you live here and get a chance, try to sit behind us one Sunday and watch her during the “meet and greet” time, or the praise and worship.  Seriously,  it is so precious…

She thinks being a big sister is great.  Once when our youngest was a baby I couldn’t find her in the house (never, EVER a good sign) and when I did, I also found Desitin smeared all over the walls of my bedroom, the bed, the diaper changing table, the bassinet, a doll she had placed inside the bassinet, and herself! 

 She’s always getting into trouble trying to do things she shouldn’t do like that…like putting my keys in the food processor, her hearing aids in the trash, walking off with something I was working on, or hiding in the corner of her room with our electronics and pushing buttons.  She managed to switch our answering machine into Spanish once, and it stayed that way for almost a month.  All the instructions came out in Spanish and I couldn’t find the book!  Why, oh why did I take French in High School!!??  Don’t let her near your i-phone…she is not as innocent as she looks!

Abbey also loves loud noises.  Perhaps it’s the hearing loss? When we got a new DVD player it came with a volume knob instead of a button.  She likes to practice “drive by” volume control.  Very casually she walks past and then sneaks a hand out to turn the volume on the TV to its highest setting.  Of course this gets quite a reaction out of us, so she’s laughing at us running to turn it down. She even thinks a screaming baby is hysterical.  If you are in the grocery store with a child throwing a temper tantrum, you are Abbey’s best friend.  She will find you, she will laugh at your child, and she will probably sit down on the floor while doing it because when she laughs that hard she can’t stand up anymore.  

If all of that isn’t funny enough, now that she’s a big girl she likes to grab people’s phones and purses.  It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t know you.  If you’re not looking, she’ll take your purse and walk off with it over her shoulder.  As soon as we catch her, she makes this face and throws it back at you.  She even takes things OUT of people’s purses!  It has finally gotten to the point where I just make a joke out of it to keep from being embarrassed.  I tell people, “Oh, I taught her how to do that..she’s pretty good huh?” 

I.LOVE. THIS. KID.  She reminds me to loosen up, and that sometimes it’s just worth laughing about!