Funny, But Not Hehanhhehanhhh Funny

Abbie has the strangest laugh right now. Trying to describe a sound in print is a foolish endeavor destined for failure, much like “The Brothers Grimm,” but I’ll try anyway. It’s kind of like one long “anh” sound, punctuated with “heh” sound; “hehanhhehanhhhenhanhhhhhhh.” She has an outright giggle she uses when something really entertains her, but this laugh is the one that comes out most often. It comes as close to an evil cackle as possible for a toddler’s laugh.

I know of a few ways to elicit this laugh, including the newest one I discovered yesterday. I was sitting on the floor just outside of her room while she played in the bathroom right behind me. I imagine she was playing with her favorite bathroom toy, the electronic scale. When she pushes it once, the display lights up and says “0;” when she pushes it again the display numbers dance for a few seconds before saying “E” because the poor thing can’t read an accurate weight with a toddler constantly pushing up and down on it. Wait a few more seconds, and the display goes blank letting the process begin again. It has a few bonus features too, like clicking every time she pushes it and irritating daddy by playing with it.

While sitting on the floor, I decided I should do something that resembled parenting, like grab a book and encourage her to read or at least not break its binding. I moved from my spot on the floor just outside her room to a book on the floor just inside her room using the easiest locomotion possible, crawling. When caring for a toddler, it’s important to do the always do the easiest thing to conserve energy because you never know when you’ll need to bound across the house to knock a pair of scissors our of her grasp that were left in a location that she certainly couldn’t have reached yesterday.

Abbie emerged from the bathroom as I adjust my position to all fours. I don’t know if it was the sight of daddy being silly and crawling when everyone knows darn well I can walk just fine, or just the sight of daddy’s big butt hoisted in the air, but Abbie started laughing when she saw me. “Hehanhhehanhhh.” I turned, saw she was smiling, and realized I didn’t need a book or any other toy to prevent her from destroying the scale; I simply needed to keep crawling. I crawled another few steps, and drew a few more laughs. I crawled even further, and drew even more laughs. Then I tackled her.

Tackling her is the surest way to make her laugh. It’s not so much the process of being dropped to the floor that makes her laugh, but the roughhousing that ensues. With her horizontal on the floor, I position my hand on her tummy and shake up and down or in a circular motion vigorously enough to alert child services if she weren’t laughing. Apparently she finds the contraction of Shaken Baby Syndrome funny because she laughs uproariously as long as I’m jiggling her tummy. Perhaps this explains why she doesn’t talk yet.

I have a few other tactics for making her laugh. I can blow on her face, though that seems somehow unsanitary. Why I should be concerned about giving germs to a child who habitually shoves rocks in her mouth I don’t know, but I am. Then there’s the head shaking game where she shakes her head back and forth, and I shake mine back. On a recent car trip, I entertained her for many miles by shaking my head in the front seat while she giggled in the back seat. I may have endangered the lives of my entire family by briskly shaking my head while driving on the interstate, but at least she wasn’t screaming at the moment. Since I cut my hair, she seems to enjoy watching my head shake, so I may need to wait a few more weeks before leaning on that trick again, and hope she still finds it funny, or at least as funny as watching daddy crawl.