laughter

I am thankful for laughter.

Laughter is an outward expression of happiness. And nothing is better for your soul than a genuine, deep-from-the-bottom-of-your-heart laugh.

I love hearing laughter. I love laughing. I love the way laughter can instantly lighten the mood and clear away any negative.

I am thankful that I love to laugh. I am thankful to be surrounded by people who make me laugh. I am thankful that I can occasionally make other people laugh.

When my mom was pregnant with Pie Face, I was in high school. We would stay up late talking about names for the baby. [All eight of us kids were a surprise. My parents didn't find out genders beforehand for any of us. It was always fun to guess, and get the phone call from my dad telling us whether it was a boy or girl.] We had narrowed down names for the baby if it was a boy, but it seemed like we spent so many nights talking about girl names. [Probably because there were already so many brothers.]

One night, I got home late from hanging out with my friends and went in to tell my mom 'good night' and we started talking about the baby.

We brainstormed names and my mom blurted out a name and then I said, "... we could call her Mim!" We both laughed for a few minutes but the mention of Mim made me think of Mad Madam Mim from the Sword in the Stone. You know the scene where her hair covers her face and she says "BOO!"... well, that's what I did with my long, long brown hair.

My mom laughed so hard that tears streamed down her face. I'm not sure if it was because it was late at night or perhaps the pregnancy hormones, but my mom couldn't stop laughing. Which made me laugh. Which made her laugh harder.

Even still, every once in a while, we'll remember that and we both get a fit of the giggles.

And I love every second.

I'm so grateful for laughter. I'm grateful for the bond laughter creates between people.