The Frustration Raspberry

I’ll admit it: I’m a bad mother. I am guilty of laughing at my child’s grief. But my excuse is that I just can’t help it. And you’ll understand why when I explain his latest trick: the frustration raspberry.

Ryan is obviously both a bright and a strong-willed child, and intelligence and determination mixed with the limited abilities of a one-year-old can be a very frustrating combination. So when Ryan wants something that he can’t have, or that he can’t figure out how to get, he gets frustrated. And he demonstrates that frustration in different ways: sometimes he cries, sometimes he yells, sometimes he bangs things, but most often of late, he blows something I’ve dubbed the “frustration raspberry”. There are several variations of the raspberry, but it always includes a lot of noise and a lot of spit. And it is hilarious.

Picture it: a small, determined child attempting to climb out of his playpen, standing on top of toys to boost himself up, reaching up to Mummy or Daddy for assistance, bracing his feet against the wall, pulling himself up using the TV cabinet. Suddenly he realizes that all his efforts are futile, and he contorts his face into a pout and lets loose with a loud, wet raspberry. The poor kid is angry and puzzled and frustrated, and I’m laughing at him. But how can a parent not laugh at that?

Fortunately, I don’t think he’s yet aware enough to feel slighted by my laughter (although he is no doubt offended by my lack of assistance). I think I have some time to practice laughing silently at his predicaments, so by the time he is aware I will have mastered the art of the straight face. I imagine there will be many times in the future when I need to excuse myself to laugh in private, then compose myself and go console him or help him solve his difficulty. There will probably be times when I hold my laughter in until I can call or e-mail his father and share the story between my gales of laughter. There may even be times when both his father and I excuse ourselves to another room and then laugh ourselves silly.

But I suspect that the best of times will be many years from now, when we show Ryan himself some of his comico-tragic moments on tape and we can all share the laughter together.

Wouldn't You Like to Know What's Goin' on in My Mind?

Sometimes I wish I could read Ryan’s mind and figure out what on earth he’s thinking. Last night at dinner, he kept looking back and forth from me, to Herb, to me, to Herb, and then giggling. What exactly did he find so funny? And then after supper, he was crawling around in the living room, and he would go a few feet one way, then stop and sit up and giggle, then turn around and crawl back and stop and sit up and giggle, and then turn around and do it all over again, back and forth and back and forth. He obviously found it amusing, but I’d love to know why.

There are times when he’s studying some object and I know exactly what his thought process is. For example, when he plays with the vacuum cleaner, he pushes it on its side and looks at the wheels for a moment, then reaches out and turns them. He’s obviously figuring out how they move and which way they move. And then he tugs at various parts of it, obviously figuring out what’s attached and what’s not. He’s analyzing how the machine is made and how it works. Sometimes he’ll push different objects (like a ball and a block) down a ramp and anything that doesn’t slide, he picks up and turns over and over in his hand. He understands that some things slide and some things don’t, and he’s trying to figure out how they’re different and what makes that particular object not slide. Those brain processes are obvious and understandable. But the things that make him laugh are often incomprehensible to me.

Laughter is such an unpredictable thing anyway, but with a baby, it’s even less predictable. I remember reading somewhere about why humans find something funny, and it has to do with incongruity and unexpectedness. But to a baby who is just figuring out the world, almost everything seems incongruous or unexpected, and therefore funny! So I guess that’s the simplest explanation of most of Ryan’s laughter. He crawls from one side of the room to the other and suddenly he sees things from a different perspective – unexpected and therefore funny! He looks at the expression on Daddy’s face and it’s not quite the same as the one on Mommy’s face – unexpected and therefore funny! He makes noises with his mouth and when he unthinkingly changes its shape, the sound changes – unexpected and therefore funny!

I’m glad that he finds entertainment and amusement in so many things that I find commonplace. I might even be a little jealous at how much pleasure he gets out of life for no particular reason that I can see. But instead, I think I’ll just try to share in his wonder and amazement at the unexpectedness – and also the humor – of the world around me.

Laughter, the Best Medicine

Ryan has reached the stage where it takes almost nothing to make him laugh. In fact, he often looks at some random object in the room (a lamp, a bookcase, the stove) and then spontaneously breaks into giggles. Sometimes he’ll giggle for a moment, stop and look at whatever it is for a few more seconds, and then break into gales of laughter again. If he’s looking at my feet and I wiggle my toes, he guffaws. If he’s looking at my face and I smile or say “Boo!” he laughs uproariously. If he’s lying on the floor and kicks his feet loudly against the floor, he snickers. If I toss a rag over his face, he pulls it off and chuckles. And if he’s on his back and I grab his feet and pull them over his head, he cracks up like there’s never been anything quite as funny in all of history. And any kind of motion sends him into giggle fits, whether it’s Daddy tossing him up in the air like a rag doll, Mommy rolling him back and forth in her arms, or swinging on a swing.

He’s pretty much always been a laugher. He learned to laugh early, and once he figured it out it was a trick he pulled out all the time. He loves being tickled and teased and poked. He loves hearing (and making) goofy noises. He laughs at his toys, his shadow, his reflection, and the ceiling. It really doesn’t take much to tickle his funny bone.

And his laughter makes everyone who hears it happy. Who can listen to a laughing baby without joining in on the laughter – particularly if what’s making the baby laugh is something as random as a chandelier or a spot on the carpet? As I’m writing this, he’s lying on the floor behind me, playing with a fluffy blanket and quietly chuckling to himself. His laughter – even his very happiness – is infectious. I can’t help but feel in a better mood listening to him laugh. His joy makes me forget all my woes. It makes me want to join in and find something amusing in all the boring, ordinary things in my world.

So whenever I’m in a bad mood, all I need to do to cheer myself up is wiggle my toes or stick out my tongue or blow a raspberry, and Ryan and I will both start laughing and forget all our worries. Because laughter really is the best medicine.