It's not really the non-stop bickering that has me distracted, so much as the unabated shrieking.
The bickering is just routine stuff set to a pulsing Disney pop tune; she is rehearsing a dance routine for the talent show, he is determined to sabotage her efforts.
The shrieking is harder to take. There is nothing funnier to our seventh-grader these days than to jump out at us from behind doorways and around corners with a high-volume shriek. Unless he can make one of us jump and spill something at the same time.
But really, I could probably write through through the pulsing pop tune, the non-stop bickering and the intermittent shrieking, if not for the incessant throwing of objects across the room.
Some of the things flying across my house are balls, designed for throwing, and create no more disturbance than a sort of mild thumping and a few close encounters with the decor. The coffee mug takes a hit, but remains safely upright. Even the pencils skittering across the floor can be mostly ignored.
I could work around the pulsing pop tune, the non-stop bickering, the intermittent shrieking and the stuff being thrown, except that it always seems to devolve into deliberate beaning, which leads inevitably to crying and demands for immediate intervention.
"MOM," she screams, "HE hurt me."
And so, we are back to bickering: "I threw a crayon at your butt," he counters. "How could it possibly hurt?"
It is a good question, but it is beside the point.
The point is, there is no way I am going to get any writing done. I may as well be trying to solve a formula in quantum physics as to attempt to put a sentence together from beginning to end with any degree of ... any hope of hc=6.63x10 whatever.
Have you considered boarding school?
Posted by: Rattling the Kettle | April 13, 2008 at 07:06 AM
Yes, well that's really good advice coming NOW. Where were you when I was choosing a career in the low-paying and soon-to-be-extinct newspaper industry, where we are lucky if we can afford to send our children to theater camp?
Posted by: Suburban Kamikaze | April 13, 2008 at 08:23 AM
Is a cage in the attic still illegal?
Posted by: foolery | April 13, 2008 at 02:52 PM
Life is great isn't it? My girls are 1 and 3 and this is already happening. Good to know its far from over.
Posted by: Rachel | April 16, 2008 at 06:38 PM
Hi, I stumbled in from BOSSY and have to say, you have certainly kept me from doing laundry today, but I hate laundry so who cares, right?
Posted by: Kimberly C | April 18, 2008 at 02:14 PM
Oh Rachel,
I am not sure where to begin. All I can say is be sure to enjoy the pre-conversational stage!
Thanks for stopping by Kimberly. Come back anytime. I have always found that the laundry does not pile up quite as quickly if you spread it around...
Foolery - I am going to be first in line to buy your parenting book.
SK
Posted by: Suburban Kamikaze | April 18, 2008 at 04:46 PM