Laughter is Truly the Best Medicine

A merry heart does good, like medicine, But a broken spirit dries the bones.

-Proverbs 17:22

 

One thing I am good at is laughing. My friends used to always get mad at me because I would ALWAYS laugh whenever they got hurt. Of course if they were really hurt I wouldn't have laughed.

 

                                        

This movie is soooo my humor

 

I get it honest though. All of the women in my family do it. I have to really bite my lip at times to keep from laughing when my children fall down or what not. The last thing I want to do is give them a complex!

Lately I have come up with an even better use for laughing. Extreme stress for me now normally results in laughter.... lots of it.

Tonight was one of "those" nights. My husband works for an elevator repair/maintenance/developing company. On occasion he has to work over and will miss dinner. I was expecting that this would be the case tonight and decided to fix waffles with some yogurt for dinner. On nights when I've had the kids all day to myself, I'm in need of an easy peasy dinner. 
The kids have been a little on the fussier side this week. Miss Boo is in the process of getting her first tooth (yay!!) and the other two just seem more tired than usual. I'm guessing they're growing... like always... ;)

While making the waffles, Miss Boo was loudly letting me know she was hungry in her pac-in-play, Bunkin was trying to wash the few dirty dishes that were in the sink and decided to start stabbing my new sponge with a knife, and Bear found the container of chips that I had not found the time to put away (imagine that) , on the table, and was happily munching away.
I hurriedly got the waffles done, slapped a waffle and yogurt on the plate for the boys, and tore up a piece for Miss Boo to start on. Things were going to finally be quiet right??? Wrong!!!

Never again will I consider waffles to be an "easy" dinner. Somehow in the craziness of things I had forgotten how Bear will completely and totally freak out if a part of his food tears or breaks before he wants it too. I have worked really hard on telling him that it still tastes exactly the same and that it's okay, but on nights when he's tired, there's no convincing him.
I eventually had to send him to time out because he was still screaming and crying hysterically after I tried to calm him down. While he was in time out (still screaming) Bunkin managed to fall off of his chair. This of course resulted in lot's of tears. While I was checking him over to make sure that he wasn't REALLY hurt, Miss Boo (whose waffle was gone) became very upset that Mommy wasn't shoveling food into her mouth every 5 seconds and screamed her little head off.

So one child in time out screaming and crying, one child crying his eyes out because he fell of his chair, and one impatient screaming baby all at the same time.

What did I do?? At first I started to cry. It had been a very long day and with no end in sight. But then.... I started to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
Eventually things calmed down. I got Bear out of his foul mood by singing a silly kids song with funny voices and jazz hands, and the boys even helped me clean off the table when we were done.

This has been a trend in my life lately. I've been through huge amounts of stress in the last few years, and for the past year, I have taken to laughing about them.

Don't get me wrong, it's very involuntary. Most of the time I can't STOP laughing once I start. My husband of course teases me that I'm loosing my mind.... and maybe I am!

But I feel that in a way that it's something I've learned.

This saying is so true. I feel that through all of my trials, I've learned that all of it doesn't really matter. Life will go on. God will still be there. You can make it through ANYTHING with God on your side.

I feel I laugh as a stress relief, and because I know that in that moment, things are not as bad as they may seem. And they will get better.
God will make beauty out of ashes, if you allow him too.

We all know how good laughter is for you. In case you want a reminder here's a great link by the mayo clinic ---> http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress-relief/art-20044456?pg=1

Since I want you to experience some of the great benefits of laughter, I'll leave you with two funny things Bear has said this past week

1. My husband was going to drop me off at a store, and take the kids to another one, and when he told Bear that we were going to drop Mommy off at the store he said, "Are we going to go buy a new Mommy at the next store?? I like my Mommy!!"
2. It had been one of those long days and I was trying to get the dishwasher loaded when the boys came up and just HAD to have drinks right that second. I told them to hang on a minute, and when they continued to pester I made a low growl out of frustration. Bear said, "Use your words Mommy!"

Hope that made you laugh!! Till next time :)