Happiness is...

...Max's laugh. Laughter is the theme this week over at I Heart Faces. How could I resist? Especially given the day we had yesterday.

I can still vividly recall the first time Max ever laughed. He was about three months old, we were hanging out in bed, I made a raspberry and suddenly, he guffawed. For me, hearing that laugh went way beyond the usual delight of a parent witnessing a baby doing something for the first time. I was so excited to get a reaction from him, so encouraged to see that the wheels were turning in his brain, so eager to prove the doctors wrong who told us Max could have serious mental retardation.

Stuff that makes Max giggle now:
• When you drop things.
• When you put him on your shoulder and jog around the house.
• Doing "This little piggie" on his toes.
• When you chase after him and pretend to be a monster.
• The scene in Cars when Lightening McQueen is talking to himself and saying, "No, No, No" and then "Yes, Yes, Yes."
• When Aunt Judy and Babba walk in the door for a visit.
• When I pretend to nibble on him and eat him up, body part by body part.

What makes your child crack up?

Monday Morning Confessional: I'm still in denial about the cerebral palsy

Dave and I went out Saturday night to see I Love You, Man. It's pretty amusing, and introduced me to the concept of "man dates." We had time to kill before the movie started, so we swung by a new bookstore in town. I'd heard it was owned by parents of a child with autism, and I've been meaning to visit.

I spent the entire time browsing the "Special Needs" section. I felt a little wistful about some of the issues the books addressed—ADD? Wow, life would be so different if Max had that instead of CP [denial]. Tourette's Syndrome? Yep, I'd trade [denial]. Bipolar disorder? Not fun but still, not CP [denial]. Then I found this book.



First, it dawned on me that I'd never even considered buying a book about cerebral palsy [denial]. I stared and stared at the cover, showed it to Dave and said, "Look, it's Max." And I felt a serious pang of sadness [denial].

Book Boy holds his left hand in the same downward position that Max holds his right one. His toes are pointed the way Max's do. He's got that same sweet smile Max has. He's playing with a train, by himself. He has a mop of hair.

It was a sobering moment; they strike sometimes when I least expect them. But they never last. I snapped back, and decided it would be a good book to read.

We bought the book. We went next door to have ice-cream. We saw the movie. And it felt really, really good to laugh.