Do you ever get so wrapped up in the challenges facing your child with special needs that you forget to laugh? Guest blogger Kimberly Drew is here with a post about how your child can help you laugh and live with special needs.

Laugh and Live with Special Needs

I have to say, one of the best things about being Abbey’s mom is getting to see her sense of humor. The things that make her laugh are so out of the ordinary. And she has THE BEST belly laugh!

For as long as I can remember, Abbey has laughed at mishaps. My husband and I like to call it her death and peril humor. We were turning the TV channel once and there was a person hanging onto the edge of a cliff with their feet dangling and screaming. I thought Abbey was going to pass out from laughing so hard. We quickly discovered that The Three Stooges is one of her favorite shows. Anytime someone gets bonked upside the head with a 2 x 4 she’s practically sliding off the couch in hysterics. If you are in danger, she is laughing about it.

At some point in the early years, our youth group kids discovered that pretending to knock each other over would set her off. They quickly made a point of doing it on purpose just to get her to laugh. Then she figured out she could walk up to them and barely touch them and they would pretend to fall backward. Such power!  Such fun! It was all well and good until she started grabbing other children by the clothes to pull them down, and then proceeded to crack up while they were crying. We put a quick stop to that one.

Abbey also loves loud noises. Perhaps it’s the hearing loss? When we got a new DVD player it came with a volume knob instead of a button, she learned to practice drive-by volume control. Very casually she walks past and then sneaks a hand out to turn the volume on the TV to its highest setting. Of course this gets quite a reaction out of us, so she laughs at us running to turn it down. She even thinks a screaming baby is hysterical. If you are in the grocery store with a child throwing a temper tantrum, you are Abbey’s best friend. She will find you, she will laugh at your child, and she will probably sit down on the floor while doing it because when she laughs that hard she can’t stand up anymore.

If all of that isn’t funny enough, now that she’s a big girl she likes to grab people’s phones and purses. It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t know you. If you’re not looking, she’ll take your purse and walk off with it over her shoulder. As soon as we catch her, she makes this face and throws it back. She even takes things OUT of people’s purses. It has finally gotten to the point where I just make a joke out of it to keep from being embarrassed. I tell people, “Oh, I taught her how to do that… she’s pretty good huh?”

I love this kid.  She reminds me to loosen up, and that sometimes living with special needs is worth laughing about!

What Helps You Laugh and Live?

What makes you laugh on your parenting journey? Your child? A movie or TV show? A family joke? Leave a comment to get us all laughing!

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