Humour

...or is it Humor?? I guess that depends where you live. Being Canadian, we like to add an "u" to our words, like neighbour, colour, labour etc. That's just how we do things here. Eh.

Back to humour. If you know me, you will know that I appreciate humour. I love it! Especially the dry kind of humour. Hearing something funny can leave me in a stitch or two, with tears filling up my eyes. I enjoy adding to the humour, making others laugh as well. It feels great to laugh out loud. It's also a great way to save time at the gym, considering you've already worked out your abs.

If you have children in your life, you will know that having a sense of humour is a must. I am not talking of the humour mentioned above, the kind that leaves you on the floor rolling in laughter (I don't find it humourous to lie on the floor, rolling over toys, sand from the sandbox and something sticky that fell from snack time 3 days ago.). I am talking of the kind of humour that keeps you from going insane.

There are times in my day that if I don't see a particular situation as "funny", I will pull my hair out. I will yell. I will cry. I will want to give up. Times like this:

This was before 7:30 in the morning. Do you see this little stinkerbutt below?

Yes, him. That mess above was caused by my innocent blue-eyed monkey. Apparently he can reach stuff from the counter, including a full jug of homo milk. Oh, let me tell you, it was hard to find the humour in this. We are talking about a full jug of homo (the expensive kind) milk before 7:30 a.m.  That's right. Hardy har har.

It was very hard not to yell, or cry or throw my hands up in the air. So what else is there to do? I couldn't laugh. Not quite yet. I could not find the humour in it. So I went and grabbed my camera. It was either that or crawl back into bed. But crawling back into bed meant not cleaning it up. And I knew I couldn't do that, seeing as he walked through it twice  even before I had a chance to grab a cloth. So, quick, a picture taken and then there I was, cleaning the floors, the cupboards, under my fridge, the walls, you name it, it got wiped down. Who knew how far milk could splatter?!?!

I guess the positive is that I probably had the cleanest floor before 8 that morning in my neighbourhood (I can say this because my sisters-in-law don't live in our neighbourhood :o)!

But it is true. You need a sense of humour sometimes to get through your day; to see the lighter side of things; to recognize that while he spilled the milk all over the place, it's not like he thought to himself "Hmmmm, I know what I'll do first thing in the morning. I'll tick mommy off by grabbing the milk so I can watch her clean it all up."

Yeah, despite what I can think sometimes, kids don't really work that way. Not at one years of age anyway.

And that is why I take pictures. I take pictures to "cool" me down, to keep me from yelling. It's a good thing, or else I wouldn't have remembered the following (that makes me smile now), like the 15th time he asked for cookies that day, finding them in the cupboards to bring them to me:

Or, I would have focussed too much on the fact that in order for her to make a bed for her and her baby, that meant dumping all the toys that were in this box onto the floor; instead, I took a picture to focus on her creative imagination, which left me smiling:

If I didn't have a sense of humour, I would not have laughed when I opened up my fridge to find this waiting. I have no idea how he got it in there, but it was unexpected and funny!

We also went through a time where we "adopted" Minnie Mouse, according to Keziah. It was all fine, until Kez insisted that Minnie ate at the table with us. Being at the end of the day, patience is not at the forefront, and all I could see was more work in getting the booster seat for Minnie, as well as setting an extra place setting with food. But if I allowed my lack of patience win out, I would not have seen this beautiful, caring side of Keziah, who felt Minnie was in need of adoption "because she didn't have enough food and she needs lots of hugs."

And this can be hard to smile at, due to the fact that if it's not food he is asking for, it is a book to be read to him. All.day.long. Yes, definitely hard to remain patient when trying to get work done. But after I took the picture (instead of chucking the book in the garbage), I saw how cute he looked, so earnest and with pleading eyes. Yeah, that made me smile.

So I encourage you (and me) to laugh a little, to smile lots and to grab your camera. You will then remember these incidents with a smile on your face.

Children can suck a lot, if not all, the energy out of us with all their demands, messes and needs. But they can also cause a lot of inside grins, heart melts and chuckles. By taking pictures of it, then maybe one day the humour in raising kids will completely drown out the guilt for the times when we threw that lego car out of the fridge, or for yelling sharply "No, I do NOT have time to play 'mommy' to an adopted Minnie!!".

Pray and ask the Lord for our eyes to be opened up, to see the humour in particular situations that may be good at making our frustration levels rise quickly. That does not mean to give in to them, but for me anyway, the time it takes to find my camera and take a picture of it is enough time for me to reply back in a more gentler way than I would have without taking that time, even if it is still a "No". Find your go-to, figure out what works for you. For me it's the camera, for you it may be going into the bathroom for the 32nd time that day.

Does this mean I don't get frustrated anymore and can always see the humour in everything? Ha! The amount of pictures on my camera will tell you otherwise.

I am thankful for my camera as an outlet, but most of all, I am thankful for new mercies every morning. Grace, grace, grace. Thank you, God, for your grace. I pray that I will then show grace to the children that He has "loaned" out to me, His lambs.