Fleeting Askemia

When I was a child my parents best friends lived down the street from us.  The father was a physician and he would talk about medical things from time to time with my father, who was always up for anything interesting in the field of medicine.  One night, when I was playing with my friend from across the street, we heard them talking about something called, "Fleeting Askemia".

I am trying not to search the internet to see what the medical condition actually is, because my understand of it as a child was far more romanticized--and inaccurate--I'm sure.  From what I was told, it was like small electrical storms or strokes that happened in your brain.  The people who suffered from this condition would be totally normal and then they would suddenly exhibit unusual symptoms, such as laughing uncontrollably. 

And with that completely non-medical and eight-year-old's memory of a strange condition, I am most certain I have the true nature of the behavior totally wrong.  But what you need to know is that we translated that to be, "when you laugh uncontrollably and you can't stop laughing, you were having fleeting askemia." 

It made laughing fun.  It made it fun to keep laughing and not stop laughing.  It made laughing at your friend who was laughing and laughing, even more funny.  I remember rolling around on the grass in my neighbor's yard for who knows how long laughing and laughing.

There should be more medical conditions that are purely fun that make you laugh, even if they're only in your imagination.

The Big Boy Update:  Edna asked my son today, "do you know your shoes are mis-matched?"  My son responded, "mis-matched helpes us itch."   We are still trying to figure out how two left shoes from two different pair of shoes is helpful in the realm of itching. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  When our children aren't allowed to do something, for whatever reason, we tell them that, "<that thing you want to do or have> is unavailable."  My daughter was playing with a toy early today and I overheard her tell her doll, "this is not uh-bale-deh-buhl."