Chatterboxes

Last night I came home from work and per the normal routine, was instantly bombarded by small boys and about a zillion questions. Beanie immediately runs over with his demands. "Mommy! Coat, OFF! Mommy! SIT!" and from the older one..."Hey Mommy can I watch another show because I only watched one show, well actually there were THREE shows in that one show but really it was only ONE show and you said I get to watch TWO shows if I'm good and I had a good day so can I watch another show that has three shows in it?" All of this transpires usually at the same time the second my foot hits the door.

I love coming home and seeing their sweet faces. I miss them during the day. I want to scoop them up and squeeze them and pepper them with kisses but I must admit, I would love to do this while they are quietly playing or reading a book, verses trying to do it whilst the verbal hurricane pounds down on me. Some days when I come home I am so mentally drained I cannot compute the 1 million questions that are thrown my way. And Liam NEVER stops talking. EVER. He can talk long and loudly without stop. Ken & I are amazed/horrified by this. It is like verbal diarrhea that keeps coming at you. And then I catch myself telling Liam "Buddy, I love you but I need you to just be quiet for just a little bit." And he will say "OK!" and then start launching into another flood of questions about 30 seconds later. I feel horrifically guilty about this--I don't want to stifle his opinions (and he has a lot of them) or make him feel like what he has to say isn't important--because it is. It's just that the non-stop talking is...exhausting.

The guilt pounds down on me on nights like this and I realize that some day, in the not-so-distant future when he they are brooding teens and won't give me the time of day I am going to BEG them to talk to me. I know this and try to remind myself of this fact when my nerves feel frazzled and my brain is wrung out like an overused sponge. As much as I crave some mental peace when I come home I realize that they crave a piece of my time just as much and I owe it to them to listen. I just wish that I could control the volume and press pause every once in a while.