Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Why do you not shut up?!?!?



You know why I don't have a Twitter account? Because I already get inane updates every 15 seconds from my children.
"Daddy, when I said 'hi', you closed your mouth, so I thought you was not listening."
"Uh-huh."
"Daddy, this is my tea cup."
"Uh-huh."
"Daddy, this is my bear."
Uh-huh."
"DADDY! GAIUS JUST ATE A PRETZEL!"
"Aaaand..."
"Daddy, I'm playing with this alligator. It makes music."
"That's cool, love. Go play with it in the playroom, please. Daddy's trying to work."
30 seconds later...
"Daddy, I'm playing with this alligator. It makes music."
"Really? No fucking way. You mean the SAME alligator you were playing with half a minute ago when you gave me this very same status update, or is this a DIFFERENT goddamn alligator? Because if it IS different, I want to know where the hell you got it. Do we have a magical freaking xylophone alligator duplicator hidden somewhere in the playroom? Because I want to capitalize on that shit. Otherwise, GO FUCKING PLAY!!! GAHHH!!!"
She giggles mischievously with a just a hint of demonic influence and scampers away, secure in the knowledge that she is driving me batshit loco.

The worst part, for me, is that with the twins, I hear everything twice. Seriously. 
"Daddy, can I have your hammer to fix my baby?" 
"No, Boogie. Go play." 
A few SECONDS later - "Daddy, Boogie needs your hammer to fix her baby..." 
"GAHHHH! Go AWAY! You don't use a hammer for baby repair!"


Apart from feeding them constantly - with the feeble hope that having food in their mouths will prevent them from talking, or at the very least, muffle the sound - there are a few methods I use to distract my children from assaulting me with an incessant barrage of inane chatter.

I have a GINORMOUS table, and that table is sitting on my decent sized lawn, and I cover that table with about 10 yards of banner paper, and give the kids every marker, tub of paint, tube of glue, crayon, and snapcase of glitter that I can find and let them go to town. I then pull up a lawn chair, pour my sangria, and read. In a couple of hours, I hose them off or have them wash off in the pool, and, when the paint has dried on the paper, I wallpaper their fort with it. I do this once or twice a week.
Outside playtime is our favorite activity. We have a nice big beautiful yard, complete with trees and a clubhouse, and the kids spend hours out there letting themselves and their imaginations run wild.
As always, there is the "Super Ninja Turtle Monkey Princess Dance Time Power Hour" or "Dance Time" for short.
Also TV. TV is a good distraction. Wait, what's that? Experts say TV is BAD for kids? "Experts" can fuck off. I know when too much TV is too much. 
Reading time. My kids LOVE to read, so I encourage "reading time" at every opportunity.
And naps. I love that my kids still go down for 3 hour naps right in the middle of the day. And if they aren't napping, they are at least having some personal quiet time. Which means so am I. Yay!

No comments:

Post a Comment