Giggles

Easily, the best part of every day for me is when I can get Paige and Tony to giggle.  It happens daily, and it usually arises after my best efforts to get them from bickering back and forth, or to calm them down and keep them from jumping on the sofa or on the little bastard, Enzo.

The other day I was out on my back deck, taking a phone call for work.  Tony waited until I ended the conversation, and then said, "Do you care if I scream as loud as possible?" 

"Go for it."

He took a deep breath and let out a loud, loud, ear-bleeding scream.  When he was done he smiled and said, "I bet that airplane heard me."

I glanced up at the sky, and said, "It may not have heard you, but it certainly saw your big head." 

His laugh was contagious, and beautiful.  We giggled for ten minutes, and throughout the night, he kept coming back to it.

It has gotten to the point in our household for each of us - - - Paige, Tony and myself - - - to have at least one deadpan comment, not always insults, that tie us up in those gracious moments of perfection.

Since they were little, I've worked from home on many occasions.  If they see that I'm in the middle of writing an email or reading a document (always seated at my kitchen island in front of the laptop), they will wait until I take a breath or my fingers stop typing.  If the phone rings, I put a finger up and there is silence.  They've had the great misfortune of listening to me on conference calls, and hearing the voices of my coworkers.

Every single time the topic of my job arises, for the past three months, they've said, "Whatever.  You're boring."  When I offered to go talk to Paige's class for career day, Paige said, "Um no.  Lawyers are boring and no offense, but no thanks."

I am always telling them that someday they are going to eat their words, and they're going to realize how brilliant their mother really is.  They roll their eyes, and say, "Booooooring. . ."  It has gotten to the point where I'll say, "Oh, I have a funny story from work. . ." and the simultaneous reply is, "Boring" and they look back down to what they were doing.

"Okay, then I'm not going to tell you how I shot a stink bug off the ceiling with a Nerf gun today. . ."  And I walk out of the room.

"Wait?  What?  Boring lawyers do that?"

And so it goes.  I make fun of Tony's gigantic head, and the beauty of Paige's singing voice, and they insult me daily on my career.  Yet, there is always a laugh - - - a nice, hearty laugh.