The sweet sound of laughter

It is now nearly 12:30 a.m. I am to the "shhhhhhhhh!" stage in this sleepover. I think our 7 year old guest is out cold. The other girls are going to play the movie again b/c they talked through it. Earlier I heard giggling. Much giggling. The kind of giggling that only pre-teens can have.

For the "normal" parent, or parents of "normal" kids, this may not be such a big deal. But, I have an autistic child. I have a child who would not answer a yes/no question before she was 5 years old. She would not participate in Sunday School. She would hide under tables at birthday parties if I weren't holding her. Now she is having a sleepover with her "birthday twin" (one of our neighbors is a little girl born about 1 1/2 hrs. after Bethany). AND she is giggling. It is a sweet sound.

The other reason I love that sound is because of the memories it stirs. Beverly & Denise at my house. Denise & I at Bev's house. Bev & I at Denise's house. If it was a Friday night, at least one of us would be at the other one's house, and often all 3 of us. Oh, we giggled so much. I think that MAY be why my parents bought a house with the kids' bedrooms upstairs & theirs downstairs! We didn't have a TV in every room. We only had a few stations and it was back in the days when you had to actually walk TO the TV to turn it on & off. So we usually listened to records (those big black things that went around & around). But mostly we giggled. We giggled ourselves silly til we cried and our sides hurt. We continued this well into young adulthood.

The last few times that the 3 of us have been together, it's been the 8 of us with kids, and it was our kids laughing. They were little, so it was the precious giggles of preschoolers splashing in water, fully dressed. We were all too tired to laugh ourselves silly.

My mom always told me that her dad would tell her & her sister when they got the giggles, "If you keep laughing like that someone will end up crying." Well, as I was typing this I heard a big clunk. Natalie just fell off the bunk bed. She's okay, but I guess it proves my Grampie's point!

Maybe I need to call Denise & Bev & see if they want to laugh themselves silly with me!