My house of laughter.

Every morning, I shower with Izzy and Sophie, although I may stop that soon simply because that shower is getting awfully crowded. Today when we were all standing there drying off, Izzy picked up a net toy that he has and he hooked it over the end of this door-hinge towel rack
that he likes to use as a microphone.

He starts screaming through it, to Sophie, "I hi you! I big hi you! I big hi you!" It's big because he's screaming it. Then he looks at me and says, "Mama, patah." I look at him quizzically and he says it a couple of more times, with much emphasis: "Ma-ma, pa-tah! Ma-ma, pa-tah!"

I say to him, "Honey, I don't know what you're saying." He very seriously looks at me and says, "I saying, Mama patah." I cracked up laughing, because he was exactly right. Whether or not I understood him, that is indeed what he was saying.

Although he didn't find that especially amusing, the kid has a great sense of humor. A couple of days ago I was getting out our bowls for cereal, and when I pulled his out, I kind of jumped, a very startled jump, for I thought I saw a bug in his bowl. Ended up it was only a piece of cereal that must have dried on the bottom on the bowl before it, and dropped into the bowl I was currently holding.

Izzy, who was not so patiently waiting beside me, burst into laughter and said through his giggles, "Mama, you okay?" I cracked up laughing too, told him I was fine, and we shared a good minute long laugh together.

That's one of the most awesome parts of them growing up. They both have terrific senses of humor, and laughter is a constant theme in our house. Just this morning I was thinking about their incredibly expressive faces, and I decided they are the Jim Carrey's of the baby set. Both of them make the funniest faces just to get a laugh, and it always works. My niece Maddie used to do this too. She would open her eyes real wide, and kind of stare out of the corners of her eyes, with the rest of her face perfectly straight. I lost it EVERY SINGLE TIME she made that face. There was just something about it that struck me as so damn funny. She'd crack up too, and then - BOOM - straight face again. It thrills me that now my own kids are starting to do the same.

Although it does make me a tiny bit sad for Sophie to already be making jokes, just because her babyhood is flying by so quickly. As we all ate our bran flakes this morning, I would take a bite, then I would quickly give Sophie a bite of hers. She would try to suck the milk off the flakes before eating them, so there was milk running down her face. I sighed and thought that this was one of those things I would not miss as she grows up.

Then it hit me that in the next year she will likely stop most of the things that occasionally wear on me. She will feed herself, she'll drink out of a regular cup with no sippy lid, she come to me at night rather than the other way around, and I'm willing to bet she'll be potty-trained. She's already peed in the potty twice this morning, and once was when she crawled to it, put her hand on it and looked at me intently.

Sophie is in a much bigger hurry to grow up than Izzy ever was. But as she races to catch up with Izzy, she's laughing all the way, and causing all of us to laugh too.

My kids rock, and their laughter makes my house rock as well.