Why being a mom is good therapy

If laughing is psychological medicine, then I just might be overmedicated. As trying as it can be to be Emma's mom, it also is so much fun. You moms and dads know exactly how it is. You're going along, having a conversation with your child, or just listening to him or her playing, and they come out with something that makes your jaw drop. No wonder Art Linkletter's show "Kids Say the Darnedest Things" was so popular. Somebody should bring that back.

With Emma, I usually have to delay my delight ... because she gets very embarrassed and sometimes angry when I laugh "at" her. Sometimes I end up having to do damage control and apologize for hurting her feelings. I try to assuage her with my favorite, albeit tongue-in-cheek, quote from Robin Williams's character in "Dead Poet's Society," paraphrased: "I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing near you."

Here are some of the latest exchanges and Emma-isms that I could remember off the top of my head. I need to get back into the habit of writing them down when they happen; my memory is like a sieve (another side effect of motherhood, I'm convinced).

— — —

I asked Emma what she did in school today.
"I'm curious," I said.
"Oh, mom!" she said and giggled. "You're not a monkey!"
— — —
I asked Emma to try to put her "pink slime" back in the zippered plastic bag by herself.
She replied: "Well, OK ... But I don't have three hands, you know!"
— — —
Singing a lullaby to her baby doll the other day, Emma made up these lyrics: "Oh my baby, I'm so happy. It's your birthday. You're 19 and you're going to college!"
— — —
I got frustrated the other day while on my knees cleaning out the lower kitchen cupboards. I used a mock-whiny voice to air my distress.
Emma, kneeling beside me, placed a hand on my back and said, "It's OK, sweetie. Take a deep breath."
— — —
"Uh-oh, spa-doke-i-oes."
— — —
"I'm all colded up."
— — —

"Grandma is going to die first, right Mom? Because she's sixty-seventy-ninety-fifteen and seventeen years old. And then who's next?"

— — —

"I love you as big as the blue sky."

— — —

"There's a baby in my belly and I'm going to poop her out."

— — —

"Dear God, I'm thankful for my room it's so beautiful and all my stuffed animals and Dora and Benny and Lucy and Cutie Pie and my monkey and ... um, I forgot what I was going to say. OK I'm done. Oh wait. God? I'm thankful for my mommy. I love her so much."

(Yeah, so I hope crying is good for me, too!)