{"id":432,"date":"2010-11-17T09:06:28","date_gmt":"2010-11-17T09:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/praying-for-laughter.html"},"modified":"2010-11-17T09:06:28","modified_gmt":"2010-11-17T09:06:28","slug":"praying-for-laughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/praying-for-laughter.html","title":{"rendered":"Praying for Laughter"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have an article here at beliefnet: “Five Ways to Welcome Laughter Into Your Home<\/a>.” Hopefully it will help bring a little laughter into your day!<\/p>\n

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It begins:<\/div>\n
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It’s easy for our household to become grim. With two small children and another on the way, there are plenty of mornings like this past Saturday, when I found myself barking at Penny: “Get yourself in those pants right now!” The simple tasks–using the potty, getting dressed, putting on jackets, getting in the car–sometimes take all my patience and ingenuity, and leave me with little more than anger. On Saturday, I threatened. I cajoled. Iberated them. I berated myself. It was miserable.<\/p>\n

But then there are mornings like today, when Penny andWilliam were in their pajamas on our bed, and I said, “After I dry<\/a> my hair I think there are two little people who need to get dressed. Where are they?” Andthe bed exploded in giggles because Mom just asked such a funny question. Soon enough, I was laughing with them. William stopped laughing long enough to say,”It’s Penny and William that need to get dressed!” And we laughed some more.<\/p>\n

In both cases, all I needed was to get clothes on their bodies. One ended in shouts, and the other in giggles. What was the difference? How can I bring more laughter into our mornings, into our family? I’ve been considering the question, and five points come to mind. Our children are young,but I suspect these strategies would help any household–be it comprised of couples or roommates or families<\/a> at any age…<\/p>\n

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To keep reading, click here<\/a>. <\/div>\n
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I have an article here at beliefnet: “Five Ways to Welcome Laughter Into Your Home.” Hopefully it will help bring a little laughter into your day! It begins: It’s easy for our household to become grim. With two small children and another on the way, there are plenty of mornings like this past Saturday, when…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-family"],"yoast_head":"\nPraying for Laughter - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/11\/praying-for-laughter.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Praying for Laughter - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have an article here at beliefnet: “Five Ways to Welcome Laughter Into Your Home.” Hopefully it will help bring a little laughter into your day! 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}