Linking up with my beloved Five Minute Friday today! The theme?
My children seem to suffer from a strange ailment that I cannot cure:
They are Loud Talkers.
Not all the time, mind you. If you need to ask one of them why they decided to whack the other one over the head with the croquet mallet? This merits soft whispery responses that make you lean closer and closer until you realize you have crawled up ON them to get a straight answer. Which is what they wanted all along. Because now you are cuddling and so it’s all ok.
Ok, let me give you a brief sample of the Loud Talking:
Dinner table:
Me, asking the Most Useless Question Ever: So, how was everyone’s day today?
Boys, answering with Universal Useless Response: Fine.
Blonde: I SAW YOU. I SAW YOU. RED WAS PICKING HIS NOSE. THAT’S A DOLLAR.*
Red: NO. NO I WAS NOT. IT WAS A SCRATCH, NOT AN ITCH. MOM. MOM?
Me: Hold on. I’m just… can I get an Exedrine? The walls are shaking.
Blonde: THIS SPAGHETTI? IT SEEMS TOO… RED. I CANNA EAT RED FOOD. IT’S AGAINST MY BELIEFS.
Red: ME TOO BUT ALSO DID YOU KNOW THAT A NINJA HAS THE POWERS TO READ YOUR MIND AND ALSO KILL THINGS?
Blond: WE DON’T TALK ABOUT KILLING AT THE DINNER TABLE! BAD MANNERS! THAT’S BAD MANNERS! GET HIM MOM.
Me: Get… who? I can no longer discern who is speaking it’s the Thunderdome in here.
Husband: I CAN GET IN ON THIS. DID YOU SEE THOSE WILDCATS! THEY WON? AGAIN?
Blonde and Red, really all riled up now because of the husband, also known as The One Who Keeps Making Things Worse: WOOO HOOOOOOO, LET’S TRY TO MAKE MOM FALL OFF HER CHAIR!
Guys, I like things quiet. I listen to music, quietly. I ponder things, quietly. I like cats, because they GET what it is to mull! Bless their furry, sullen little hearts, they are QUIET.
My house? It is often not very quiet. And, the other weirdness? It’s LOUD about things that don’t merit noise. At least to me. Does it really seem fitting to be loud about things like putting on socks? Socks are, essentially, quiet things. Why do we have to bellow about them?
This is what I am trying to embrace in the Loudness:
- I tend to miss the Loud Talkers when they are not around. I thought, perhaps, when they leave for school that I might sit around and listen to the “Sounds of Silence” and maybe some Gregorian chants, and just wallow in the Still. But, you know what? I kinda miss the little air horns. I do.
- My children live life on a Whole Hearted level that I have forgotten how to do. On a volume level of 1-10? They go to eleven.
- I can learn from them. They Dive In. They go Whole Hog. They Embrace. They have GUSTO.
- They live like they sound. It’s not a bad way to exist, I tell you.
I want to live with a Whole Heart. There are lots of ways to learn this: following Jesus, reading His word, talking to Him a LOT, praising Him for the good of life, and the bad of it…
And also? Watching children. And then, I Sound my own barbaric yawp. They do it about socks, for Pete’s sake. They are expert Yawpers.
We should all be so lucky.
#YawpOn.
*In our house, if I spot a child picking his nose, I charge him a dollar. So far I have made about forty thousand dollars.
Also? I leave you with this. Because, it’s perfection. And it pretty much sums up my existence with my two small rockers, every day:
Dana Bowman 
Oh my goodness. I love this. I also love all things quiet and could learn a thing or two from you about letting my kids live wholeheartedly (I wrote about myself living wholeheartedly today, the least I can do is let my kids live the same!). And if it makes you feel any better, you are about the fourth person this week that I have heard lamenting their children’s decibel level. I think they calm down eventually. I think.
Maybe. Someday. We can hope. 🙂 Thanks for the read!!
Oh, you gave me a good laugh this morning at work and I needed it! My family has always been knows as “the loud talkers and fast eaters!” When I married my husband he spoke so softly. Now, we have ten year old boy who talks REALLY LOUD like all his friends! My husband and I sometimes find ourselves siting next to each other and SHOUTING. We are not fighting. He sometimes remembers he was not originally a loud talker like my family and brings our level down to normal. Sigh. Much thanks!
Whenever I visit my hearing challenged father, I wonder why I leave and am shouting at everyone. It’s b/c that’s how we communicate w/ him and it kinda sticks that way. Crazy.