The Price of Too Much Fun

This weekend, we celebrated my husband's birthday with a group of long-time friends. It's always a treat to see that your children seem to have just inherited the bond that made the grown-ups friends to begin with.

Little Meems and the other two little girls she played with are all the same age, and they just click. Hugs and kisses and giggles -- they're little girls that are somehow made for each other.

This little girl has had some big struggles. OK, in the grand scheme of the universe, not SO big, but to me as her mom...huge. Friends, school, her place in the world and in our family...she's getting it all figured out, as are her parents. I worry more about her than I do my boys, even though she's the toughest of the bunch. Maybe that's why I worry about her. I don't know.

Or maybe it's me that's been having the hard time lately, on her behalf. I feel her struggles as deeply as if they were my own, but does she feel them as intensely as I do? I doubt it.

So, to see her playing with utter abandon, and to hear her laughing that deep, belly laugh of hers was a balm on this mother's hurting, nurturing heart.

And when she came up to me and whispered that she'd laughed so hard she'd peed her pants, I couldn't have been more thrilled.

When was the last time you had so much fun you wet your pants? When was the last time you laughed so hard you lost all control? When was the last time you completely turned yourself over to sheer bliss without a concern for anything else?

I took her inside, wrapped her underwear in tissue and dried her pants to my best ability with paper. It wasn't a large spot, and luckily her long shirt and the pending darkness covered it nicely. She was good as new.

Later, she left a tired, happy girl. I left a happy mom. Of course, I found out the next day that her "best" friend from school has been making faces at her and laughing at her handwriting. So THAT's why I never heard back from her mother about a playdate. Sigh. The reprieve from the struggles of a 6-year-old girl was far too brief for this mom.

Which reminds me -- I think her underwear's still in my purse.