"What has one good joint and..."

So one of the few special advantages that I have in life is being able to laugh at the children when I should probably have torn my (graying) hair out and ran screaming into the nearby parking lot.  I'm really good at that.  I mean, really good. I've even taught them how to laugh at their own foibles. It's heartening to come in a room where there's one person (that would be number #2) sobbing on the floor, face looking like he lost a fight to a steamroller, and next to him the firstborn is saying with a straight face, "It's ok Judah... sometimes that happens when you put the slippery socks on and won't wear shoes.... it won't hurt for more than an hour!"

 

It feels good (pun not really intended) when Judah runs full speed while looking backwards, crushes himself into the doorframe at Mach2, slides down the door like his new favorite cartoon character Wile E. Coyote, and while I am steeling every nerve in my body not to sprint over to him and scream," Are you ok?  I don't want to take you to the hospital!", bounces right back up and says in his best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice, "It ok... I not hurt..."   At those moments I feel like I might have done something right, that when I am long gone they might look back fondly on their memories of me and think that their old man was once something other than just old.

I feel triumphant (and strangely disgusting, all at once) when the oldest accidentally dunks his favorite stuffed animal into the "loo" that he has forgotten to flush for (drum roll, please) his league-leading forty-fifth time in a row, and I do not just throw him into the john to join the hippopotamus named Rhino in traversing the effluence.

Sometimes, though, my willingness to laugh bites me in the butt. Like this morning.  I will say as an aside it's not cool to make fun of disabled people, but when you parent one, you get a free pass now and then.  It doesn't diminish my love for little Jael ("the Yelpster") when I crawl one-legged across a room in her signature style or do the robot in front of her to watch that whip-smart little girl imitate me perfectly because it's the only way she can dance--yet. And I say "yet" because against all odds, limitations and expectations that I had for her when she came out as flat and flexible as an ironing board, she's walking at the same time our first two beautiful crazies did.  It was against this backdrop that this minor indiscretion of mine occurred.  She was driving me crazy by attempting to crawl downstairs from every room that we placed her while I tried to finish up getting ready for work.  Rachel was doing hand-to-hand combat with Judah over oatmeal and had finally won (I think?) when I noticed Jael working her way free again and ka-plunk!ing herself over to the stairs yet again.
"Rach," I yelled, "Get her before she falls."  Rachel gave a look that every woman should have in their arsenal for recalcitrant males... something between "do-it-yourself" and "you lazy donkey."   And then the humor kicked in.  "Hey," I said, trying to lighten the mood as Jael pulled herself over to the top stair, "What has one good joint and goes ka-blump, ka-blump, ka-THUMP!"

From downstairs the ethereal voice of Elijah floated up,  "That's easy, Dad-- JAELSTER!!"

Maybe I should just stick to the old classic, "Do as I say, not as I do."  They might have a better chance.  At least they know they're loved.