So last Wednesday night, I came home from teaching my weekly Business English class, and Keith had had a rough night with the kids. Every once in a while, every parent has one of those nights, right? Where you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, like everything you did was not quite enough, not quite right. Like you weren’t patient enough or creative enough or whatever enough. You know those kind of nights, right? So he had one. And by the time I got home, all the kids were in bed, but Keith was feeling pretty dejected, basically. He had just barely told me about his night–he didn’t really have to say anything–it was all in his eyes. (After all, I’ve had those nights too. I know what they look like in the eyes. Especially his eyes.)

And he was eating the last of a bowl of cereal. Out of a really, really big bowl. I looked at him, with his big, sad, dejected head almost entirely hidden inside an even bigger bowl. I was just about to tell him what an amazing father he is, even on his very worst day. I started it with, “Hey, get your head outta that bowl…”

And evidently the way I said it was funny. Or something. Still don’t know exactly what it was. But Keith found it absolutely hysterical, these words. And he SPIT MILK AND RICE KRISPIES ALL OVER ME. Now I, Lisa, have been known to lose my already-dense composure to the point of spitting things out in hyenous laughter before, but for those of you who know my husband, he is not the spitting kind.

And then we laughed so loud and so hard and so long that suddenly everything was all better without another word. And every abdominal muscle hurt for two days afterward.