215. Get The Wiggles Out

As a parent, we teach our kids lots of important and unimportant things. As they get older, it’s fun to see what sticks. 

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I’m Nora McInerny and this is It’s Going to Be Okay. 

Today’s okay thing comes from Rebecca, who sent us an email.

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When my kids were young (as opposed to now when they’re 17, 15, and 12) they’d be feeling overwhelmed, restless, or just plain silly and they’d march up to me resolutely and say, “Can you help me get the wiggles out, mom?”  I’d grab each of their hands in mine, ask them seriously and several times over, “Are you ready?”, “You don’t look ready?”, and “I can’t possibly start until you’re ready…” and then, without warning,  I’d start to shake their arms up and down in front of them until their arms wiggled like limp noodles, their giggles started, and I grew tired.  Inevitably, it would cause a chain reaction with my other kids and a line would form – each with the same request – “Can I get the wiggles out?”.  

I don’t know when I started doing this or where it came from – probably something I created in the moment as I held onto their hands and felt the need to make them laugh – but it has endured.  So, it made me irrationally happy the other day when my niece walked up to my 15 year old at a family gathering and placed the same request with her, “Can you get the wiggles out?”  My daughter knew just what to do: ask her the same question a couple of times and then suddenly, without warning, begin shaking her arms. It elicited the same response in my niece that it did in my kids – fits of laughter and an immediate connection. ​