When You Want to Laugh but Can't

It's very hard to properly discipline your kids when you're trying your damnedest not to laugh out loud at their antics. Ashe is hitting the age where his vocabulary is just exploding, he is putting proper sentences together, and mimicking anything he hears...along with making up his own twists here and there. A lot of them are just flat out hysterical. But most are flat out hysterical and things he really shouldn't get away with saying. J and I are finding it harder and harder each day to keep our wits together long enough to let him know that somethings are not ok to say while contorting our lips into frowns when all we want to do is bust out laughing.

For instance, while Ashe won't call J Babes anymore on his own, he has begun to "echo" me anytime I call up to J. So if I call upstairs to get J's attention, and Ashe is nearby it sounds like this:
"Hey Babes?"
"HEY BABES!?!"
"Honey don't call Daddy Babes. That's Mommy's name for him. You call him Daddy."
"OK."
"Thanks.... Hey Babes?"
"HEY BABES!!! MOMMY'S CALLING YOU!!!"

I mean seriously, how can you keep a straight face to that?

His latest phrase is "MOMMY I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU!". It's so hard to discipline a toddler when you add in the sound of this tiny pipsqueak voice trying to sound gruff. He said this to me today and of course while trying not to laugh I told him he can't say that to Mommy. Then J pipes up in the background "But you say it to him." I went to counter that I did not but realized, I did. Usually I say it to Xavier, who believes every word out of someones mouth is directed solely to him and he'll continually interrupt a conversation with "What? What? What did you say? I missed that can you repeat it?" to which I turn around and say "I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to (insert name of person here)." With Ashe echoing Xavier, he's been doing the same thing to me. And thus I found out where he gets it from.

Tonights escapade sent J and I over the edge. I took the turn to put the older boys to bed tonight. Of course they decided to act like they had caffeine instead of blood in their tiny little bodies and were just all over the place. It actually got to the point where I went beyond threatening to shut their bedroom door (they loathe that) to actually doing it. Ashe kept popping out of bed and opening it, then running back to bed. Maybe I'm a bad mom but after this went on about 4 times I waited right outside the door and when he opened it again I yelled "GET IN BED!" His little body jumped 3 feet in the air and he ran back into bed.... laughing his butt off. 'Great', I thought, 'he thinks it's a game.'

I went back to the office and shut our door so I could pretend to be ignorant of their antics. Sometimes you have to just admit defeat and hope they pass out soon without destroying their bedroom. As I'm putting on my headphones and turn to my computer, the office door opens and there is Ashe with a HUGE grin on his face and he yells "SURPRISE MOMMY. I OUT OF BED!"

I cant begin to describe the heroic strength it took for me not to laugh right then and there. Just the mental image of his cherubic little face with a devilish grin as he said that makes me giggle. But I had to be the mean Mommy. If I laughed he would think it's ok to do this forever and he would try. Oh yes, my darling boy would try every night thereafter if I showed any hint of amusement. So I reigned in my laughter, fixed a frown on my face and growled "Get. In. Bed. Now."

His poor little face crumpled, the eyes glistened, as he sees the outward appearance of me not getting his joke. I want to jump up and tell him Yes dammit that was really funny!!!!! but I can't. I have to be Mom. He starts to cry and hobbles back to bed, and sobs himself to sleep. And a little part of me dies inside, because dude, that was a riot, and yet I cant tell him. Not for another 16 years at least. And until then he's going to think I was mad. And that sucks.

After he went back to bed I closed the door and J and I quietly stuffing our faces into our shirts and just laughing until we gasped for breath. Even eye contact with each other would set us off again. I hope that when Ashe is old enough I can share this blog so he knows Mommy wasn't mad, but I had a job to do and sometimes my job as Mom has to come before my sense of humor as myself. And I really hope I didn't just give him a memory to dissect with his therapist in 20 years. I think I'll make sure to print this blog out and save it in a fireproof safe for proof I'm not as evil as he may think I am.