Tickles and giggles in heaven...

My One Philly Family and I had a perfect moment recently.

One Philly Daddy and I were sitting on opposite sides of our couch and One Philly Son would laugh and run from one of us to the other.

When he was old enough to tickle and play we would hold up our index fingers to mean "I'm gonna tickle you!!!" One Philly Son has adopted this to mean "hey, why don't you tickle me?" and holds up his index fingers when he wants to be tickled.

At some point he indicated he wanted to be tickled and would run between us laughing and tickling. One of us would "capture" him for a tickle and ge would yell out for the other to "rescue" him.

The sound of the three of us laughing and One Philly Son yelling "Money!" (that's what he calls me. I love it.) and "Daddy" is what heaven looks and sounds like to me.

Even more special to me is that we taught some basic sign language to One Philly Son, one of the signs being "all done". It is taught and first used for eating, but One Philly Son has translated it for use in all situations, so when he's done with tickling, swinging, walking, etc he can just "say" so. I love this.

We do our best to honor his "all done" requests, except when there's an occassional insistence at bedtime that he's "all done".

So when One Philly Son told us he was all done, we stopped.

One Philly Son may be a child, and there are going to be times I have to exert my will over his: holding hands across the street, going to bed, brushing teeth, not hitting the dogs with my flip flops (sigh). But I want him to feel his needs and boundaries are recognized and respected, whether we're tickling or debating what to eat for lunch.

I can't wait for my next trip to heaven on our tickle couch!!!