After dinner, Miss Bugg picked up a book I’d purchased from my favorite book catalog, Chinaberry, called I Kissed the Baby by Mary Murphy. I actually bought the book with Buttercup in mind, but anyway, it’s a little board book about a new baby in the barnyard and each animal in turns says something like, “I saw the baby? Did you see the baby?” So, as I read, I made up a different voice for each animal. In the end, it’s the mother duck who’s speaking, er quacking, and I remembered that I used to be able to carry on quite a quacky conversation, so I gave it my quackiest best and it cracked Bean and Bugg up to point we were all laughing off our little tail feathers. I had to read the book over five times, until I’d quacked till I was hoarse and said, “No more.” Such a little thing, such wonderful laughter, such a sweet treat.

When Bean was new and started that deep belly laughing, I remember his daddy saying, “That is the best sound in the world.” If it’s my big kids, or my little gramerlings, it’s still the best sound in the world to me. Those precious minutes of a good book and laughter make me remember why I love grand parenting so much.