Stopping the storm from breaking

“A day without laughter is a day wasted”  Charlie Chaplin.

Chuckle monkey!

When Alby was first born we were expecting crying through the night, a baby filled with colic and essentially four months of sheer exhaustion and non-stop baby jiggling as we tried to pacify our screaming newborn.  To every comment we received complimenting us on having such a calm baby we responded with “probably just the calm before the storm”.

As it was, Alby was a dream.  Yes he woke in the night, he still does, but only for a feed and then he was straight back to sleep.  He never found his voice in the way that some babies do, going from calm moaning to spine tingling shrieking over night. He’s an absolute delight of giggles and smiles to be around.  And when he does cry it’s always for something specific and as such easy to fix.  I won’t pretend we’ve never had issues, but we have always been able to be the rather smug parents of a very happy, smiley and giggly boy.  

And so he has remained, a generally awesome, happy little dude.  His nursery workers even told me today that Alby was the only child in his class not yet to have a real upset.  And yet rather than walking away warmed by another layer of smug, I’m anxious that it will somehow all fall apart. 

I don’t think Mark ever really appreciated what a phenomenally positive presence he is in the house.  The man wakes up smiling – a trait Alby has adopted.  He is Mr Optimistic, Mr Positive, Mr Happy.  When he laughs it is with his whole body, loud and proud there’s nothing subtle about it.  I, on the other hand, have a slightly thicker shell in this area.  Laughter doesn’t seem to come as easily to me.

 When Alby was a baby and first learning to smile I actually set myself the challenge of trying to make him smile 10 times each day – if I could accomplish that then I could go to bed knowing I had done my job.  Mark wouldn’t have had to think twice about this, but for me it is something I actively had to work at. 

Keeping it fun

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed every bit of it.  But it was consciously done.  As with changing, food, sleep and everything else baby related work is required – why should laughter be any different?

And now, with Mark gone I’ve set myself a similar challenge – to see if I can get Alby to giggle, really snorty, chuckling giggles several times every day.  Because I have this real fear about Mark not being in the house and Alby just being stuck with me.  I worry that without his dad’s influence his daily smiles and giggles which currently come so effortlessly will fade.  We never got the long awaited storm when he was a baby and I’ll be damned if I get it now.