Rebecca made the comment not too long ago that she thinks we are addicted to endorphines. She pointed out that we always end our meals somehow laughing hysterically over things (jokes, stories, comments, songs, poems, whatever we can think of). So, she felt that just like some people seem to want a cigarette after dinner, our family seems to want endorphines.
Sure enough. We have watched our behavior, and she is correct - we end up laughing over something after dinner (and sometimes even after breakfast and lunch!!). It might start out with something mild - maybe telling stories from when they were children or a joke John heard. Then, we have noticed that it progresses to bigger things. Eventually, somebody's giggle box gets turned over, we are all laughing like crazy (some of us barely able to stay in their chairs - and it's not who you think it is), and we all enjoy a good high on endorphines. Why do we do this? We just don't know. We have to wonder if Rebecca is right - maybe we are addicted to that high.
This evening was no different from any other. We had been working very hard cleaning and painting the building where we gather for worship. We dragged ourselves in after chores, hungrily attacked our burritos, and before we knew it........we were chasing our addiction. I decided to share with you these verses that we spontaneously wrote tonight. It is sung to the tune of "One dark night, when we were all in bed"; the song with the old cow kicking over the lantern. We started out singing that song in various tones, keys, and silly dialects. It ended with these words:
One dark night
When Momma lost her head
All the rest of us were headed off to bed,
Because we just couldn’t stand one more of her old jokes,
They just weren’t funny,
Even though she thought so.
Boo, Boo, Boo
One dark night
When Momma lost her head,
All the rest of us were headed off to bed,
We tried to go to sleep but she was way too loud,
She just kept snorting
in her own little world.
Snort, Snort, Snort!
Pretty silly, but we sure enjoyed that high afterwards!
I must confess, if we were going to choose to be addicted to anything, I would choose being addicted to these moments with my family. One day when John and I are just too old to care whether or not we even put our teeth in or get dressed, we will sit there in our rocking chairs and get tickled thinking of these "endorphine" moments. We are constantly told and may even find that we are now the ones telling new parents "enjoy them while you can" or "they grow up so quickly". I've always tried to figure out how to make these times slow down. Much to our frustration, though, we just can't. However, we can store up these treasured "endorphine" moments and just keep hitting "rewind" in our memory banks over and over and over again. Maybe they do go too quickly, but we can play them in slow motion as many times as we like. So I say, addictions are good - as long as we are addicted to our families!
Meet Me in Montenegro (2015)
10 years ago
8 comments:
I agree with you wholeheartedly!
Me too. Although I must admit I don't mind being addicted to coffee, either...or chocolate.
Oh, by all means. I do not want to limit anyone to the number of addictions. :) As long as you keep you addictions in the correct priority order, then add that chocolate and coffee all you want. In fact, put them together and they should technically only count as one addiction instead of two. If we take this a step further and share that chocolate/coffee with your family couldn't you consider it just one addiction? I believe that would be most acceptable.
I think I learned to laugh heartily due to your family. It must be something in the genes. I can't stop laughing now myself, about practically everything.
One thing I adore is getting Chuck to the point where he falls on the floor, red in the face laughing. It's a beautiful thing.
I didn't grow up with that. I love it and can't get enough.
Cathy, I do believe you are right. I never though of it that way. When you can't resist having a mocha with your hysterial family that *is* only one addiction! Adriana, hearty laughing is a beautiful thing. It is even more beautiful if you can make your relative laugh hard enough and at the right time to squirt that mocha out their nose.
Oh, we do that, too. I much prefer milk out of the nose. I feel like it's a cheap way to get one of those expensive salon facials. :):) When we see you next, I'll share the third verse to the song. It's much too embarassing to put out there for everyone to see. Trust me. It would be embarassing for YOU, my family, not me as I think I've just about reached the point where I don't get embarassed anymore. Case in point - I typically pull the sides of my hair up in one of those little claw clips, but I hate to drive with one in my hair as it hits the back of the seat just right. So, instead of losing it in the car, I will clip the claw clip to my shirt or dress and then grab it when I reach my destination and put it in my hair. When we were going to piano lessons on Thursday, I put the clip on my dress, waited until the lessons were over and children were loaded back in the car, and headed to the library to drop off books. Joshua and I carried those books into the library and spoke to the librarian. She looked at me a bit funny, but I thought she didn't understand my question, so I repeated myself, received my answer and headed back to the car. When I walked outside, I sneezed and discovered my clip stuck on the front of my dress. So, I am becoming immune to embarassing moments, but you might not be. Oh, be sure and ask me about my experience Friday night at PF Chengs. Quite interesting, but that's another blog day......
Oh, I hope that your PF Chengs experience is tomorrow's blog subject! You should really post the third verse. I am getting pretty immune to embarrassment, too. It's just something that has to happen with three children and so many opportunities for embarrassment. I think that the breaking point was the year we went to the state fair and we had Maddy in a harness and Lawrence started saying how he felt like he was walking a dog. So, Maddy decided she would walk through the fair barking. I don't think we have ever used that harness since that incident!
You know the old saying "Laughter is the best medicine." I have always believed that. It has certainly helped me thru alot of rough times. And look at it this way, if laughter IS the best medicine, it's so much more fun than dealing with HMO's!!! LOL I love to make people laugh because I love to hear other people laugh just as much as I love to laugh.
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