Susan Senator

Is there anything better in a relationship than laughing over something funny you experienced together? This shared humor is what binds me closest to the people in my life. I like coming up with shorthand references to funny things that happened and bringing them out at other times. I think that our children probably give us the most material for this. All three of our boys have come up with some amazingly astute or outrageously naive one-liners that Ned and I refer to years later.

Whenever someone is stuck, but it’s kind of their own fault, one of us will say, “Hep me Daddy, I tuck.” This refers to when Benji (at the age below) was standing in his crib and Ned walked by, and Ben naively asked his daddy for help, believing he was “stuck” in his crib and that we didn’t know about it. And being his all-powerful, all-good parents, we would help him get out! When, of course, we had put him there in the first place…

I can’t believe Benj was ever this little or innocent. Remembering makes my heart squeeze with a pleasurable pain. And so last night when for some reason Ned said to me, “Remember Benji in that crib…?”
And I then said, “Hep me, I tuk.”
We both laughed longingly but also deliciously. There is nothing quite as satisfying as sharing a laugh at your kid’s expense!