If you can't laugh...

Day-to-day life as a full-time new mom and an attorney is stressful.  It just is.  We all have our stressors, so I'm not saying my stress is more than your stress.  Not by any means.  But sometimes, you have to find those ways to keep things light and find humor in your life or you'll go crazy.  I've found this to be true now more than ever. 

 

 

T and I regularly do this with Aubrey.  Her toys, trying to get the toys to spell dirty words or playing stupid songs on her xylophone toy.   Bugging each other with her annoying farm animal toys.  Making fun of the people on Sesame Street or Elmo's World.  (Definitely am going to have to start watching my language when I do this in the future.)

 

 

Some days...and I'm sure this makes me an awful mother...I just laugh.  At Aubrey's crying.  And not "I'm in pain" or "I'm sad" crying.  That crying is different.  It's the "I'm going to throw myself back or forwards and throw the worst tantrum you've ever seen, tossing everything around me" crying.  I was taking her up to nap one day when she did this.  I was carrying her, and she was just pitifully throwing the most dramatic tantrum, tossing her butterfly toy down the stairs.  I had to physically sit down because I was laughing so hard.  I mean, it was Oscar worthy.  Of course, she just looked at me like "what the hell, Mom? what is so funny?" 

 

 

There used to be moments when I was a Department of Child Services attorney when I did this.  Laughing at really inappropriate times.  I used to sit in on court with a fellow attorney on her docket day, and there were a few times, I admit, in the less-serious cases, when something so ridiculous was said by one of the parents that I had to walk out before I busted out laughing.  I think that, more than anything was a coping mechanism.

 

 

The court staff and Judge and we had a game, too.  The Judge will pull up a random word of the day from the dictionary, and it would always be some big word that no one really knew what it meant, and we would have to use it during court hearings in the most random contexts.  Like I would be updating the court on DCS's report, and I'd just randomly throw the word in there.  Or one of the public defenders would be presenting an argument and would just throw the word out there.  And we had to do it with a dead straight face.  No one else in the court room knew what the heck we were talking about, but the word was normally so big and formal sounding that it sounded like it belonged in some sort of legal argument.  Like I said, coping mechanism. 

 

 

 

At church a month or so ago, the Priest was talking about the meaning behind a certain Bible verse, and he kept using the term "erotic love" to describethese people who were sinners, but I swear, he said "erotic love" more than I ever want to hear a member of the clergy say ever.  And I could not stop laughing.  In church, of course.  Bad, Nain, bad.  He was being serious and making a point.  But I have the sense of humor of a 13 year old boy, I suppose. 

 

 

T and I'll make bets over what passive aggressive comments will be made first or how long it will take before one is made at family functions.  We'll make comments that only we understand.  And it's the only way we can get through stressful situations.

 

 

Sure, my sense of humor may be off-based sometimes.  It may be inappropriate, but you know...I have to laugh.  Because otherwise sometimes I'd cry.  And I choose to laugh.  So there.  Now tell that to my hysterical daughter who is now crying because I turned off the TV.