Don't Laugh

I really want to be someone who laughs at life... Proverbs 31 says she can laugh at the days to come.  I want to laugh at the days to come, at the days current, at the days past.  The problem is, I am a mother to little people and when I laugh, they will repeat what they just did.  And 9 times out of 10, when they do things that make me want to laugh, I need to teach them not to do those things again.

 Or, they are things that maybe aren't all that funny... they are just ridiculous... but by the end of my day, when I tell Hubby about all of the ridiculous situations together, they really make me laugh.

Here are some of the ridiculous and funny events of the past few days, at which I cannot laugh in front of the kids because they cannot keep doing these things:

Caroline ate the tip off of every marker in the box.  Literally bit the tip off, chewed, and ate.  Today she asked to play with markers again, and I had to explain to her that we do not have any markers any more because she ATE them all.

Howard and Caroline were quiet for a few minutes -- which I'm learning is the kiss of death.  They had opened my manicure set, which I didn't even know was downstairs and where taking turns examining all the tools -- like nail clippers, nail file and manicure scissors.

All the kids were quiet for a minute while I was changing Addallee, and I knew Howard had grabbed the masking tape, but I figured there was only so much damage he could do in that time with masking tape.  By the time I finished changing the diaper (which I can do really fast having so much practice daily for the past 4 years) Tracey had pushed a chair up to my desk to get a Thank You note so she could get tape from Howard to tape the Thank You note to the wall (like we do with our Christmas Cards), which was not a big deal.  But then she left the chair pushed up to the desk and by the time I rounded the corner, Caroline was standing on top of my desk surveying the desk tools on the second shelf -- scissors, staples, etc ready to choose her next toy.

All the kids share a room now so after we put them to bed sometimes we witness from post-bedtime antics on our nursery camera.  We have two bunk beds in the kids' room now, and only three of the beds are occupied.  One bunk bed is the usual bunk bed with two parallel bunks, but one is an L shape with the bottom bunk extending out from the top.  Last night I knew Howard had climbed to the unoccupied top bunk, but what I didn't know until I walked in to figure out what all the laughing and squealing was about was that he had Tracey's water bottle on the top bunk -- the bunk with the lower bunk extending out.  He would take a drink out of Tracey's water and then spit the water off the top bunk unto the lower bunk where his sisters were giggling and squealing at the indoor waterfall he was creating.

Whatever you do, don't laugh, because my kids will keep doing these things if you laugh.