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You know that moment when the house is finally quiet,
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like actually quiet, where you think did everyone disappear? Did
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I dream this whole family? And then out of absolutely nowhere,
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someone trips over a laundry basket and laughter just explodes
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like confetti, like fireworks made of joy. That's us. That's
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our language, a love language made of giggles, chaos, and
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the occasional well broken lamp. Welcome to We Are the
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Hands Ends. I'm Maya, and today today we're celebrating the
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one thing that holds this wild, beautiful, messy crew together
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even on the days when everything feels upside down. You're
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listening to We Are the Hansens, the podcast where love
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is loud, life is messy, and family is well full.
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Thirteen kids, one bathroom, endless stories, and a whole lot
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of laughter. Mornings in our House aren't just chaotic, they're
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a full soundtrack, not always a good one, but definitely
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an original. There's the percussion section, pots hands an occasional
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plate that someone thought they could balance while running. There's
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the vocal section, were's my shoe? Who took my hairbrush? Mom?
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Can you mom? Mom? And then there's me, the conductor
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standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding a spatula
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like a baton, wondering if anyone can actually hear me
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when I say breakfast is ready. But here's the thing
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about chaos, sometimes it creates the most beautiful moments. So
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one morning, this was maybe eight months ago, one of
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the little ones, let's call her the artist, she grabs
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a giant bowl, I'm talking mixing bowl size, fills it
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with cereal, and I mean fills it like structural engineering
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levels of cereal. Then the milk, and she's carrying it
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so carefully, you know, both hands, tongue sticking out in concentration.
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She makes it three steps, milk everywhere, cereal floating like
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little life rafts in a dairy ocean. And this kid,
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she just freezes, looks at me with these huge eyes, like, mom,
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I don't think I plan this part. One of the
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older kids, I think it was Madison, comes running into help,
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doesn't see the milk like forming on the floor, steps
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right in it. For a second. Nobody moves, nobody breathes,
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and then Maddie starts laughing, and suddenly the whole room
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just erupts. The little one who spilled it laughing so
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hard She's sitting in the cereal puddle, Maddie on the floor,
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sliding back and forth like she's doing the worm. The
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other kids coming in to see what happened, slipping, catching
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each other, laughing until they can't stand. And I'm standing
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there holding a dish towel, looking at the absolute disaster,
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and I'm laughing too, because in those moments, you remember
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why the chaos is worth it. It's not about the mess.
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It's never about the mess. It's about what happens in
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the mess. Connection, joy, the sound of your kids, not
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caring about being perfect, just being alive. That's the soundtrack
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of our home. Not silence, not perfection, not order. Laughter. Okay, okay,
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let me tell you about the weekend, the one Courtney
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came home for a visit, the one that well, we'll
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live in the family legend forever. So Courtney doesn't live
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at home, and she came to visit particular weekend. She
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doesn't sleep in, which is, you know, a luxury when
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you grow up in a house of fifteen people, like
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actual silence, no jumping on your bed, no toddlers screaming
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about missing socks. At six am. She's dreaming, peaceful, happy,
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and then she wakes up to this sound, something wet,
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something wrong. She opens her eyes, checks her phone. Seven
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thirty am. She sits up, yawns, starts walking towards the
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kitchen for a drink, because that's what you do when
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you're home, You caffeinate before you adult. She rounds the
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corner in the kitchen and there on the floor are eggs.
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Not like one egg, not like two eggs. We're talking
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a carton of eggs, smashed everywhere, shiny, slimy, a literal
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slip and slide made for breakfast protein. And standing in
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the middle of the egg apocalypse, proud as a peacock,
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arms covered in yoke, is Tristan. Tristan, buddy, what happened here?
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He made it slippery, he said, it was like he'd
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won a science fair. Courtney looks at the floor, looks
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at Tristan, looks at the floor again, and I can
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see her brain trying to compute, like what I do?
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Do I clean this? Do I call mom? Do I
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just leave the state? And then Morgan walks in. Morgan
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takes one look at the egg covered floor, one look
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at Courtney, one look at Tristan's proud little face, and
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she grins and I swear to you, I swear to you.
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These two grown girls look at each other like they're
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having a telepathic conversation, and Courtney says, you're thinking what
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I'm thinking. And before I can even get out the
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words please don't, Courtney runs and slides across the kitchen
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floor like she's stealing home base. Morgan goes next. They're
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sliding back and forth like kids on an ice rink,
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Eggs flying yoke on the walls. Tristan is losing his
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mind with joy, clapping and laughing, and I walk in.
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I walk into this. My kitchen looks like crime scene
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directed by Doctor Seuss. My grown daughters are covered head
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to toe and raw egg, sliding around like penguins, and
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they're laughing so hard they can't breathe. And you know
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what I did. I grabbed my phone and I took
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a picture, because this this is who we are, my
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grown children, sliding in raw egg on purpose, choosing joy
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over cleanliness, choosing memory over well sanity. And I'm standing
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there thinking, this is our family, this is our language,
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this ridiculous, beautiful, sticky, hilarious language. We cleaned it up.
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Eventually it took an hour. It was so worth it.
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Here's something I find absolutely fascinating. Laughter isn't just noise.
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It's not just air leaving your body in a weird
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rhythmatic pattern. Laughter is chemistry. When you laugh, like really laugh,
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your brain releases and doorphins. Those are your body's natural
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feel good chemicals, the same ones you get from exercise, chocolate,
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hugging someone you love. But here's the kicker. Laughter also
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lowers cortisol. That's your stress hormone, the thing that makes
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you feel like you're drowning in to do list and worry.
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So every time you laugh, your body is literally giving
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you medicine. In a household of fifteen people, laugh isn't optional,
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it's survival. We tried once to have a serious family
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chore meeting. I had a list, I had a color
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coded chart. I was ready. We were going to tackle
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the chore situation like adults, or at least like people
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who occasionally claim things. Everyone's sitting there, various levels of enthusiasm,
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which is to say none. The older kids are on
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their phones, the middle kids are making faces at each other,
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the little ones are, I don't know, vibrating. I start
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going through the list. Okay, so Monday through Wednesday we
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need someone on and one of the kids I won't
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name names, but she knows who she is, mutters, and
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one of the other kids snorts, which makes another kid
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start giggling, which makes the little ones start laughing even
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though they don't know why they're laughing, and suddenly someone
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falls off the couch. The whole room just explodes. I'm
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trying to regain control. I'm holding my chart up like guys, guys,
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we need to and the chart riffs in half because
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of course it does us. And at that point I
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gave up. I sat down and I laughed too. Did
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chores get assigned that night? Eventually, after twenty more minutes
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of chaos? Did anyone remember their chores? Let's not ask
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hard questions, but you know what we do, remember the laughter,
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the moment, that feeling of being together and letting the
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perfectionism just fall away. Because here's the truth. Your kids
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won't remember the color coded chor chart, they won't remember
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the perfectly organized Tuesday schedule, but they will remember the
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night you laughed so hard you couldn't breathe. They'll remember
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the moment you chose joy over structure, and that's the
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memory that matters. Laughter isn't just for kids. After twenty
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two years with my husband, some of our most rhematic
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moments are ones where we laugh so hard we can't breathe.
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And I know that sounds weird, right Like when you
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think romance, you think candles, soft music, meaningful gazes across
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the table, and sure those are nice, but you know
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what's more romantic accidentally snorting while laughing so hard you
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spit out your water, and your husband looking at you
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like you're the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. So
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we tried cooking together one night, and by tried, I
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mean we attempted to make a meal that didn't come
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from a box or involve chicken nuggets. We're in the kitchen,
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kids are occupied elsewhere, miracle, We've got music on. We're
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chopping vegetables like we're cooking in a show, feeling very sophisticated,
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and then the smoke start because we got distracted. We
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were talking and laughing and I don't know, probably making
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eyes at each other like teenagers, and we completely forgot
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the pan. Smoke alarms are going off. We're running around
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trying to wave towels at the smoke detector. He's fanning
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with a dish towel. I'm opening windows. The dinner is well,
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it's carbon no and we just look at each other
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and start laughing. Not polite laughter, not oops laughter, full
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body can't breathe, tears streaming, have to sit down on
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the floor. Laughter. We ordered pizza, ate it on the
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kitchen floor, still in our romantic dinner outfits, surrounded by
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the smell of burnt stir fry, and it was perfect.
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Here's what I've learned about laughter and marriage. It's the
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jokes whispered at night when you're supposed to be sleeping.
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It's the inside glances across a crowded room when someone
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says something only you two would find hilarious. It's the
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snort laughs during serious moments, the times you're trying to
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be mad at each other but someone cracks and suddenly
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you're both laughing instead of fighting. That's where intimacy lives,
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not in perfection, not in chorographed date nights, in the
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moments where you're both a little ridiculous and you love
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each other anyway or maybe because of it. Here's something
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I struggle with. It's impossible to give thirteen kids equal
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individual attention all the time, like mathematically, logistically, physically impossible.
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There are nights I go to bed thinking did I
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talk to everyone today? Did I see everyone? Did anyone
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feel invisible? And that fear it sits with you. But
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here's what I've discovered. Laughter bridges the gap. One of
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the little ones had a hard day. I don't remember
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what happened. Maybe a friend was mean, maybe they felt
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left out, maybe nothing specific and everything general. But they
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were sitting on the couch, quiet, crying, you know that
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cry where they're trying so hard not to let it out,
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but it's coming out anyway. One of their older sisters
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sat down next to them, and for a minute, she
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just sat there, didn't force it, didn't demand an explanation,
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just presence. And then she started making faces, ridiculous faces,
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crossing her eyes, puffing out her cheeks, wiggling her ears.
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And the little one they tried so hard not to smile.
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You could see them fighting it, but then they laughed.
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Just like that, a hard day turned into a soft moment.
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Laughter became a language of comfort of I see you,
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I'm here, You're not alone. I didn't fix that day.
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I didn't even know it was happening until later. But
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laughter did what I couldn't do in that moment. It
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connected them. When you have a big family, laughter becomes
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a shorthand. It becomes a way of saying I love
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you without stopping what you're doing. It becomes a way
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of checking in without formal sit downs. It's the way
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we apologize after arguments, the way we celebrate tiny victories,
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the way we survive long car rides and short tempers
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and days that feel impossibly heavy. Laughter is our love language,
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and maybe it's yours too, Whether you have one kid
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or thirteen, whether your house is quiet or chaos. Maybe
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laughter is how you say we're going to be okay, okay.
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So if you're listening and thinking that sounds great, maya,
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but my house feels heavy right now. How do I
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build more laughter into our life? I got you first,
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turn churs into games. I know you're rolling your eyes,
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but hear me out. Instead of go clean your room,
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try I bet you can't beat your record from last week.
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Or let's see who can pick up the most toys
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before the song ends. Suddenly, competition, suddenly fun. Does it
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work every time? No? But when it does magic. Second,
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celebrate tiny victories with big silliness. Kid tied their shoes,
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do a ridiculous dance. They remembered to brush their teeth
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without being asked. Act like they just want an oscar,
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make it observe, Make them laugh at how over the
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top you're being, because you're teaching them that joy doesn't
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have to wait for big moments. It can live in
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Tuesday morning, in the boring parts, in the middle of
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nothing special. That's a gift that lasts forever. Third, and
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this is maybe the most important one. Laugh at yourself first.
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If you burn dinner, Laugh if you trip over a toy.
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Laugh if you completely forget what you were saying mid
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sentence because your brain is mush. Laugh. Your kids are watching.
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They're learning how to respond to failure, to embarrassment, to imperform.
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If they see you laughing at your own mistakes, they'll
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learn it's safe to be a human, and that that's everything. Fourth,
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let your kids see you choose joy, because laughter, especially
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in hard seasons, is a choice. There are days when
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I don't feel like laughing, days when the weight of
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it all sits heavy bills, worries, exhaustion that goes bone deep.
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But I've learned that joy isn't something you wait for,
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it's something you create. So sometimes I make myself laugh.
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I crack a joke, I do something silly just to
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break the heaviness. And my kids see that, they see
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me choosing light over dark, and they learn that they
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can too. That might be the most important thing I
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ever teach them. So, wherever you are right now, if
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you're feels heavy, if laughter feels far away, start small.
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Find one moment today, one tiny, ridiculous moment, and laugh.
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It builds, I promise you know. When people ask me
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what it's like to raise thirteen kids, I think they
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expect me to talk about logistics, system schedules, and sure