Happy Kids

I’m sure my fellow moms can relate to this. I like my kids happy. No screaming for this or that, no whining no fits….just smiles and laughter. Usually Luke is a pretty happy child. But there are those times where no matter what I do, he is cranky and if I simply stand up off the floor he throws a fit. I’m sure no one else has had that happened, right?


Well, over the last 2 ½ years my husband and I have had various tricks up our sleeves to keep Luke happy. When Luke was pretty new to the world and until about 6 months old or so, we did a couple things that would always work when he was upset. The first was to sit on top of an exercise ball and bounce. Sometimes the crying was so bad we would almost bounce to the ceiling, but it would always calm him. Some nights we just sat on the ball with him while watching the news and when he would start to fuss we would start up the bouncing.

Then other times, if I couldn’t get him calm my husband would pick him up and put him on his shoulder, like a sack of potatoes or something. Then they would just walk all over the house, it would calm Luke right down. Although you couldn’t stop walking or he would start up again. So crazy!

Then as Luke got older we found he loved playing with balls. So when he would get upset we could roll a ball to him and he would start laughing. Who knew that rolling a ball could be so funny? That eventually progressed and he got “tired” of the small balls so we moved back to the large exercise ball. So even to this day, when Luke throws a fit and nothing else will get him to stop his screaming…we bounce the big exercise ball. Something about the noise or the vibrations through the floor, since Luke is usually laying down while crying, calms him right down. After a while, he’ll start laughing…like it is the funniest thing in the world to watch this big ball bounce up and down. Of course, once we start this we can’t stop for a while or else he’ll start crying again.

What we won’t do for some peace and quiet!!