As Sesame Street would say, this gratitude is brought to you
by the letter H. H alone is an important
letter to me. It is the first letter of my maiden name, as well as my married
name. It starts the words hugs, health,
happiness, and hot chocolate, all of which I am blessed to enjoy regularly. I could write for pages on any of these
topics, but the word that most comes to mind when it comes to my family and the
gratitude I have for them, is hijinks.
My first clue that this word and my family are
closely related is that my word processor is telling me it is spelled wrong
(the dictionary promises that it is a word though!). This indicates that it, along with my small
family unit, is nowhere near ordinary. In
fact, we are able to find hijinks where ever we go, even at home.
Just
yesterday, my daughter Laila found one of my old nursing bras and decided that
it would make a fabulous hat. She
proudly wore her “hat” around the house for about an hour. In another instance, when browsing through
Target, it became apparent that a family dance party was necessary, and we
rocked it out right then and there. Another
time, Laila grabbed my empty Starbucks cup while we were shopping and pretended
to drink out of it for the remainder of the trip, earning me many a “worst
mother ever” stare. These are the
moments that keep me laughing.
My
husband is an amazing person. He is able
to find the fun in every moment. He can
turn anything into hijinks. Making
dinner quickly turns into a trivia contest, and bath time becomes an epic story
involving characters with names like Admiral Fishcat and ducks named
Penelope. What should be ordinary
grocery shopping soon morphs into a musical experience (no music necessary!). I love that he and I can continuously run a
commentary on what we assume our daughter would say if she could talk. I am
forever grateful for all his hijinks and optimism.
We are
a young family. I am the first of my
friends to have a baby. Most like to
think that life becomes boring when you marry and have children. This is ironic to me because I have had more
laughter, adventures and hijinks since having Laila then I have in my entire
life. We are not simply responsible for
raising another human to succeed; we are raising another human to be freakishly
awesome! We are teaching her to find laughter in even boring tasks.
One of
my favorite clichés is, “don’t take life too seriously; no one gets out alive
anyway”. What a true statement! Yes, we
have gotten some looks from others for acting silly in public places. Miss Manners might not approve of two adults
and a baby rolling around on a grassy hill on the first warm day of
spring. However, I feel that we are
teaching our daughter that you can be involved in hijinks no matter how old you
are. Most importantly I hope we are
teaching Laila that her family will always be there to make her laugh and take
away her burdens.
Are we
perfect? Not even close. I take all the
suggestions I can get when it comes to being a good wife and mother. Even so, I do feel that if we are laughing
and loving, we are truly living. And after all, life is the greatest hijinks of
all.
~Laurel H
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