music to my ears

Sometimes the lads get to laughing at the same time and I can't help but think of Ralphie and Randy from the movie A Christmas Story -- they sound so much like them!  (This is one of those movies that I can recite from beginning to end, having watched it nearly every year on Thanksgiving with our dear friends of Bonnie Box fame.)

In fact, when we moved into our current house, I found one of them in a kitchen cabinet next to the wall oven just the right size for a little person and just about offered the lad a glass of milk (as a disclaimer: no one was in trouble -- they were just goofing around).

The lass has a surprisingly full-bodied laugh for such a wee little girl.  I love it.

I try to not to inflict too much tickling in an effort to draw forth the music to my ears that is their laughter, keeping in mind how intensely I dislike being tickled myself, but it's difficult to practice such self-restraint when the reward is so delightful.  Smooches often work well to this end, as do butterfly kisses -- and do not have the same breath-stealing dimension tickling does.  When the lads ask to be tickled, though, I'm happy to oblige until they say "enough!"

But then again, sometimes the bambini can make each other laugh in ways and to such a degree that no one else can (whether or not the hilarious-to-them subject matter is entirely appropriate -- I speak in reference to these two wily preschool-aged boys of mine).  

The sound of my loved ones' laughter -- not just my bambini's but my beloved's, parents', siblings', and friends' -- is truly the sweetest music to my ears.