To the People on the Tube Who Laughed With My Children.

Children and public transport don't always go together, especially younger kids who can find it hard to sit still and be quiet. There are adults who can get annoyed by a child's antics, wishing for the them to be quiet, to stop moving around, many of those don't have their own so won't have the same patience as us parents do (although I certainly lack it some days too). However last week on a trip to London I was pleasantly surprised by a select few people on the tube who laughed along with my children.


The woman who sat next to me on our journey through the underground to get to Madame Tussaud's, well she couldn't help but giggle at my four year old as she spotted her reflection in the window opposite and began to pull the most silliest of faces and of course sound effects came along with these expressions. It was around 7.30am so I'd like to think that my youngest gave her a good start to her day.

Then there was the kind gentleman who made a point of moving up a couple of seats in our carriage so that we were able to sit down together as a family. Ok he wasn't found chuckling along with my children but he had a nice joke with my husband as to how he coped with all these little women in his house. Something my poor hubby hears quite regularly but I think he quite likes the sympathy that he receives off of other people.

I spotted a few travellers with smiles appearing as my six year old tried to work out the tube maps above, her concentration face is definitely one that will have you smirking, especially now whilst her two front teeth are missing, and when she solved the problem and told us which stop we were heading for next you could see others thinking the same as me, well done!

And I couldn't forget lady sitting opposite me on our train back helped me without even realising. My youngest by this point in the day had really had enough but her way of showing this was to choose to argue about sitting on my lap, she wanted to stand up and hold the pole. This kind woman instead of tutting at her behaviour began to entertain my child, pulling her own funny facial expressions which started up a hole new game, different from earlier on in the day because now she had a play mate, this caused even more laughter and made the journey a lot less stressful as my daughter had sat down for the entire journey.

These small gestures, even the most subtle ones mean a lot and in a society that appears to be quick to moan, speedy to judge and just overly cynical of so much, it's nice to see the good in people shining through. I think that a positive action from someone else passes along, it really affects another persons mood for the better, it definitely did in my case. Instead of coming off of the tube with my blood pressure raised, I came off relaxed, smiling and ready for the next part of our journey because of course life is better when you're laughing.