Laughing 'til Your Sides Hurt

Last night I did something just for me, and it was wonderful. I met with a group of friends to eat dinner at Damon's, and we laughed ourselves silly.

We moms try to do something together every couple months, but sometimes it takes a little longer to get our calendars coordinated.

Before school started in the fall, we went shopping in Pigeon Forge. Then in September we met at Perkins very early one morning for breakfast before we all had to head out to different sporting events our kids were involved with. Last night was the first time since then that we'd gotten together. Just us six moms, with nobody's food to cut but our own.

The group of ladies who come varies, depending on who can get away from work/family committments each time. We rarely tackle any serious subjects. (One highlight from the Pigeon Forge trip was an in-depth discussion on mullet haircuts that JoElla instigated. Last night, we cracked eachother up discussing how our bodies change with age and pregnancies. I'm pretty sure we scared Sharon, who joined us for the first time. She's about a decade younger than many of us.) And even though we're all friends from church, other than praying before we eat, we aren't being overtly spiritual.

It's just a good, ol' fashioned, stress-relieving laugh festival. By the time we get home, we're happier moms and wives. We appreciate that we aren't the only ones who aren't perfect, whose kids aren't perfect, whose husbands aren't perfect, whose lives aren't perfect. But we can laugh about it.

For the record, we aren't there bad-mouthing our husbands. They come up in conversation because we love them, but they sometimes drive us a little batty. Still, we don't dish out trash talk on them. That's never on the menu. (Besides, without them staying home with the kids and taking care of meals, showers and homework, we'd never be able to get together for "just mom" time.)

The kids are a different thing altogether though. With them, we share the good, the bad and the ugly. And we crack up. Because, let's face it, the littlest ones in our lives are fodder for laughter.