"That was a really good laugh..."

We've had an intense couple of days!!

After dumping Lucy into bed tonight, Wes felt it necessary to whip up his infamous chocolate banana shake. I assented to this completely practical plan. Chocolate banana shake thus blended perfectly and poured into glasses, Wes retreated to the couch and tuned on the Discovery channel. I sank into my desk chair and signed onto Blogger.

Relaxation.

MMmmmmm.

You know, the busyness of the past week or so has been laced with a lot of good laughs!

Like hearing the strains of "Dielig er jordan..." [Die-lee air your-dan - to the tune of Beautiful Savior] BURST dramaticly (loudly) from Lucy's lungs as she sits on the toilet or marches down the hallway. Apparently she feels sufficiently proficient in the English language and is ready to try her hand at Norwegian. And heaven forbid mom should join in the foriegn language fun! "No! That's the Daddy song, mom!"

Lucy is also frequently found coining words of her own. When asked the name of her story book characters or stick figures she doesn't respond with a casual "Dick" or "Jane." No, she names her "people" things like "Hegliaba" and "Hazzalahgle." Just babble, you say - but no! this is not baby talk. This is very serious. These names are remembered and used regularly. And she's not just limited to names. Tonight, for example, we practiced vocabulary together. Lucy coached us from bathtub: "Mandegutt. Can you say MAndegUtt?" (this is said in the way a parent would prompt a one year old: "Dog. Can you say do-g?") When we laugh and repeat her, she moves on to another word.

Mandegutt. Man-de-goot? "Lucy, how do you spell that?"

My other favorite memories of household hilarity this week (with the disclaimer that these memories are recorded primarily for our sakes, not because we think they will be very funny to anyone else) didn't involve Lucy.

One involved me laying next to Wes in bed, interogating him about the section of Twilight he had just been reading. (Warning: if you haven't read Twilight and don't want anything spoiled, you may not want to continue:)

"Did you like it?"

Shoulders shrugged "yeah, it was good...just tell me how it ends!"

No! You have to read it yourself. But didn't you like the big fight scene?

"Fight scene..."

"The mirror room..?!?!"

Chuckle, chuckle..."You're joking right?" The words were not verbalized, but I could feel them in the darkness.

"Oh." I said. "I thought that would be your favorite part!"

"Yea, it was real good but..." Wes's laughter mounted from chuckles into deep laughs, long-silence laughs "'A big fight scene'???!!"

I couldn't help but laugh too. Long, hard, breathless, belly laughing.

And, ladies and gentlemen, I affirm that nothing alleviates stress like laughter!