Calm, Interrupted

My husband and I both come from two-child families. He has one sister and so do I. We knew, going into this marriage/family thing that we wanted, on some levels, to replicate our own experiences. Two kids felt right and complete to us.

So when Milo was 15 months, we decided to start trying to conceive Belle. (Which, in retrospect, makes me jittery and giggly in a most nervous, unattractive way. We began going for baby number two when we had a toddler that was barely toddling and communicating exclusively in screeches and grunts??)

Belle, apparently, was waiting like a jaguar ready to spring from behind a rock to be born—because it took all of one try before her cells started dividing, and multiplying into a real, live person.

When she first came into the world, it was hard, of course. I was sleep deprived and trying to juggle a two-year-old and a newborn. But it was, I thought, totally doable. Not nearly as impossible as I’d feared it might be. All I had to do was feed her, walk her around and change her diapers. No problem.

But then she learned to talk.

And Holy Crap. Things got difficult. Like bury-myself-in-the-backyard-while-humming-Tori-Amos-songs difficult. No longer was Milo’s little voice the only one working to be heard. To tell stories. To express observations.

Belle had a lot to say and she came without a volume knob.

Now, four years into parenting two kids, I can say the one single thing that drives me most crazy is Milo and Belle talking over each other, piping up about whatever strikes their fancy without stopping to consider if someone else may be mid-sentence.

To my quiet-loving ears, it’s like a full three-ring circus has invaded my life.

I’ve never liked three-ring circuses. I’m a calm, sit-on-the-beach-and-read type of girl.

I try to look at their verbal inconsideration as a challenge. This is my chance to teach them manners! My opportunity to shape nice human beings. 

But more often than not, I can’t be heard over the clowns and elephants.