Laughter

So, as you know, I've been "down" all week. In a funk. Tired. Weepy. Today it became apparent that I can chalk some of my moodiness up to plain old PMS. Some, but not all. Its been a really hard week. My family's been on edge. The children have been willful, disobedient, and disrespectful. Chris and I have been, shall we say, less than nice to each other more than once. Little things have gone wrong all week.

I'm woman enough to admit that I was feeling sorry for myself.

The family and I were invited to some friends house for dinner. Our dear friends with the seven children! Now, I don't think that my friend - I'll just call her E- has ever read this blog of mine. But if she ever does, here is my disclaimer:

E...PLEASE DO NOT TAKE OFFENSE TO WHAT I'M ABOUT TO POST. I LOVE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY AND MY STATE OF MIND TODAY IS MOST DEFINITELY NOT THE WAY I NORMALLY FEEL ABOUT YOU, YOUR WONDERFUL HUSBAND, AND YOUR SWEET CHILDREN.

Okay. So, when I heard about this invite, my first reaction, honestly, was: "Oh no. All those kids. Combined with my two hyper boys. All that noise. All that chaos. Let's just stay home, so I can pout and sniffle and feel sorry for myself and squabble with my children and fuss with my Hubs."

But, after some coaxing from my husband, we went anyway. And I'm so glad we did. We ate. We listened to the kids scream. We caught our youngest children showing each other their underwear. The guys took the kids fishing. Our children witnessed a cat get mangled by the neighbor's dog. Said cat was taken to the vet and put to sleep. Jordan pooped in his underwear. Chris played some guitar. We planned a "grownups only trip to Six Flags". We sat and talked and laughed until after 10:00.

All in all, it was a strange visit! Some really random things happened. But we still laughed! I needed to laugh! I should have known there would be lots of laughter, since I always laugh my head off when I'm around E. Laughter is always good for my soul, and tonight it was just what I needed.

When we left to go back home, I was refreshed. I felt like myself again. And it felt really nice!