Is it Just Me?

There is not a day that goes by that I am not grateful for the children that I have. There is a never-ending stream of comedic events occurring in my house. Sometimes, you have to be there to understand why it was funny, and sometimes you just have to be as weird as I am to find it funny. However, I think there are a few things that I can share to see if they brighten your day as much as they did mine.

My five-year-old son Liam is a very affectionate little boy, and he just brings the sunshine into a room with him when he smiles. Yes, he has his monster side, although there are many who just do not believe me. One of his favorite things to do is to make people laugh, though. He certainly got me, the other morning.

I was reclining on the couch with my feet up, and Liam came to sit on me. He was basically laying on my belly, hugging me, as we lay watching his brother play a video game. I took a breath, and since it is a really horrible sinus season for me, right now, I wheezed as I inhaled. Liam's head popped up, and he gave me the strangest look. Then he made this squinty-eyed, flat-mouthed face, and made the exact same sound. The combination of his surprise when I wheezed, the face he made and the perfect repetition of the wheeze was so funny that I could not help but laugh. Then he got tickled with himself, so we laughed at each other for a good ten minutes. I try to tell people about this, but it never seems as funny when I talk about it or when I write about it.

It reminds me of the time that I was picking Liam up from school and the CPR dummies were in a wagon in the hallway. Those dummies are creepy-looking, and I don't see how a school full of kids with special needs are able to handle walking past them several times per day. The whole monochromatic face with the mouth open in what looks like a silent scream freaks me out. My son, though, walks over to them, studies them for a moment, then turns to me and makes the same face.

I nearly couldn't walk for laughing. Every day after that, when we would walk past the dummies, he would make the face, and I would laugh. Now, when I described that to my mother and my husband, they could see exactly how it would be so funny because they know Liam, and they could imagine the face that he had made. He was disappointed when the dummies were no longer in the hall.

People used to ask me how I survived without cable television. I simply told them that I had kids. There is more entertainment to be had by watching the things that they do and say than anything on television. Liam is a funny little guy, and I have no idea what I would do without him.

(Note: I have included some pictures where I tried to get him to make the face like the dummies, again. I just couldn't quite get him to repeat the open-mouthed imitation that he had done the first time, but this gives the general idea.)