Finding reasons to laugh

I am SUCH a mean mom!  MEAN, MEAN MEANIE! :)

But it was so damned funny....

I left the house this afternoon to pick up my 10 year old from school.  15 year old was home, and I was not going very far, so I left the garage door open (something else I can NEVER do when hubby is home - he would FREAK!). 

Almost home with 10 year old a few minutes later, stopped by the mailbox to witness 15 year old preparing to leave on his skateboard - he tried the trick where you push the button inside the garage to close the door, and you race out before the door can close on you.  This trick is pretty tough at our house, because we have sensors to keep the garage door from closing if there is something (OR SOMEONE) in the way...... so when I pushed the button on my remote in the car, and the door started to reopen, my son figured he had tripped a sensor.....he went back to try it again.  This time he was doing this hilarious 'mission impossible' thing to try to get out under the closing door without making it reopen....I laughed so hard I could barely push my button at the right time, but I still did.

(MEAN, I know!)  I should have stopped there, but was really enjoying this game, and so was my 10 year old sitting next to me in the car.  So I watched my confused teenager visibly check where the sensors were, but this time when he walked back inside the garage to try again, I pressed the button to close the door - let it go down about a foot before I pressed the button again, reversing it.  LAUGHED MY BUTT OFF as he literally scratched his head at this new development.  I continued to laugh as he waited a second, watching the pesky garage door.  When nothing else happened, he turned once more to head for the button on the wall, and when he was ALMOST there, I pushed my own button, closing the door, before I collapsed in another fit of laughter.  There were literally TEARS streaming down my face when I caught the right moment as the door was just inches from closing all the way, and I pressed my button one last time.

The look on my son's face this time was PRICELESS, I so wish I had thought to grab my little 'flip' videocamera to record everything!  You would have had to mute your computer to watch said video anyway, because the audio would have been pretty painful - I was cackling like one of those old scary witches from TV.

Anyway, the last time I opened the garage door, my poor son happened to look outside and see my car, less than 30 yards away, and he figured out pretty quickly what was going on.  He made a gesture toward me as if to say, "what the heck, Mom?" before he hopped on his skateboard and headed to his friend's house.

I'm so thankful he has a prankster's sense of humor, so he won't hold a grudge over this one.

It felt really really REALLY good to laugh, especially sharing the laugh with my younger son - I need to do that more often! (not the mean mom part, but the laughing-so-hard-it-makes-me-cry part, for sure!)