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Things did not look promising as we strolled up the bike path towards the playground at Rahilly Park. Baby J was just waking up from a thirty-or-so-minute car-nap, there were few people around, and the closer we got, the more ridiculously large the swings appeared.

"Okay!" said Freckles, intentionally over-enthusiastic, "let's go on the swing!"

Going on the swing had been my idea, sort of. Being patently uncreative in terms of parenting ("What, really? It's okay to do that?"), I tend to steal what ideas I do put forward from friends -- or, in this case, from friends' Facebook photo albums. This particular brainstorm came from H&B and their son Mini-Man. Several months ago, H's Facebook page had featured adorable sunshiny-day shots of Mini-Man on the swings at a local park. At the time, the idea of Baby J sitting upright was not even plausible. But now, after months of biding my time, it seemed like it might be.

It seemed less likely as we approached the swings.

But we kept going because by this point we were just too curious.

"Here we go!" I said as I cheerfully freed Baby J from his stroller harness, "Aren't you excited to try the swing?"

He stared at me blankly, still groggy from his nap.

Undeterred, I slid his legs into the holes of the toddler seat and adjusted him so his arms were in front of him outside the plastic bucket. Then I went behind him and started to gently push him while Freckles took pictures. (Yes, we document everything. We're worse than The Others on Lost.)

"Isn't this fun?!?!" I kept repeating, "Look at you on the swing!" I really wasn't sure how long it would last.

But actually, it turned out to agree with him. After about two minutes of disorientation, he got really into it. Freckles leaned in front and pushed him gently while talking to him. Baby J looked around, realized he was evidently flying through the air for no real discernible reason, and started to laugh loudly.

He laughed so much and so merrily that people started to look over at him from across the park.

His laugh was so adorable that Freckles and I started laughing too, and there we all were, in the park on a nice fall day, laughing while our son flew over the playground sand next to the multi-colored play structure.

He laughed for such a long time that he lost his breath and could hardly laugh anymore, but kept trying because he was that happy.

He laughed so hard the hood of his jacket fell over his eyes.

He laughed so much that after a while we were laughing not only because he was laughing but because he'd been laughing for such a long time.

And it was the highlight of my day.