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Laugh until you cry

Last night was Miles’s night to put Ian to bed. (We switch nights because it’s too cumbersome for one person to be in charge of bedtime every night, and he and I do bedtime differently — which I think is good for Ian.) He was in the bathroom after Ian’s snack, so we went upstairs–past the bathroom door–to Ian’s room to read and wait.

When we got in his room, he cheerfully said what sounded like “Daddy fart do it”. I wanted to laugh but didn’t and was immediately internally upset that somehow he has learned that word — one that we don’t typically use ourselves. Over the next several minutes, long after Miles had joined us, he kept saying it occasionally. He frequently repeats phrases over and over (and over and over) until we acknowledge that he’s said it or that what he’s observing is correct. I, of course, was ignoring it because I didn’t want to encourage use of the word by acknowledging he was saying it–which would require me to say it. So he kept repeating it.

And I kept cursing daycare because he must have learned it there.

He brushed his teeth while Miles was taking care of some of the dirty diapers from daycare. Then he flushed the toilet, and Ian immediately giggled and said “Daddy fart do it!” After a couple more times, we realized he was saying “Daddy flush toilet.” And then I couldn’t control my laughter. Because I was so sure that daycare must have been where he learned it –and I even was blaming the annoying girl so I had someone to blame (it’s so absurd to think about it now still). I laughed until I cried and I couldn’t make it stop. (This is a trait that runs through my mom and sister as well.)

Then, all of the sudden, Ian’s face turned red and his cheeks were scrunched up and he burst into tears. Huge. Big. Crocodile tears.

photo taken by Miles: http://instagram.com/p/MZglHcsbaV/

Then I couldn’t stop laughing/crying at this. But then I heard him say “Mommy sad” and the laughter part of my laughing/crying went away. I think we share the empathy superpower. He was crying because I was ‘crying’ and then I couldn’t stop crying because he was crying about me ‘crying’.

We could’ve continued this crying cycle for a long time, if we hadn’t gotten the subject changed to talking about his day at daycare. *phew*

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2012 at 1:06 pm and is filed under Day in the Life, Ian Greggory, Instagram. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.