Friday, February 11, 2011

NYR 2-10-11 - laughter

I read in that same Oprah article from the other day that "as you grew up, your laughter rate dropped from 400 times a day (for toddlers) to the grown-up daily average of 15." Yesterday, I made up for some of that.

I had to run an errand in another part of the city and was a little nervous about where I was. There were just tons of people out, tons of motorcycles zipping between cars, tons of buses and taxis just cutting over on me, etc.

And then I looked off to the sidewalk and saw the funniest thing.

A mother was walking her three young girls home from school. One was a toddler who may or may not have yet learned to walk (as she was carried one way or the other the whole time) and the other two were a little older, but not by much. The oldest of the three had one of those rolling backpacks for school. It was a little backpack, not sturdy, not meant for travel - just meant to carry a kindergartener's books to and from school.

Well they had put the little toddler in the backpack and were pulling her along. The toddler was big enough where probably 1/3 of her body was above the top of the backpack and the rest (her legs and part of her torso) were in the zipped backpack.

The mom and all three girls were laughing hysterically and so was I.

Finally the mother snatched up the baby, who was a little chunky, before she fell out as the zippers on the backpack starting giving under her chunky weight.

For unexpected bursts of laughter, I am truly thankful.

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