A few years ago I found a sign at a craft store that said "Raising Kids is like Being Pecked to Death by Chickens". At the time Lucky was just a baby (and hadn't started talking) so I failed to see the awesome truthfulness of the sign. I didn't buy the sign and honestly never really thought about it again, until today. See, over the last weeks Livvie's (Little Bits) language skills have exploded and suddenly I go to bed every night feeling as if MY head were going to explode from the sheer non-stop badgering of questions....ALL...DAY...LONG. From sun up to sun down there is not a statement that comes out of my mouth that doesn't result in a "Why?" from Little Bits.
Lucky was always a very talkative, very inquisitive kid, but he also did a lot of quiet thinking too. He could watch a TV show and stay relatively quiet, car rides were peppered with questions, but also had nice stretches of quiet time too, overall he was the perfect companion....chatty, but not a chatty Cathy (if you know what I mean). And then there's Little Bits...who takes questions to a whole new level (a level I didn't even know existed). Even watching cartoons is exhausting, 30 straight minutes of "what dat?", "who dat?", "why he doin?", "Mama, look dat!", "where he go?", "why he sad, happy, silly...?" And the simplest tasks get turned into a interrogation:
Me: "Let's get your teeth brushed"
LB: "Why?"
Me: "Because we need to brush our teeth every day to keep them clean and healthy"
LB: "Why?" (peck, peck, peck)
Me: Because if we don't, the little pieces of food caught in our mouth will hurt our teeth"
LB: "Why?" (peck, peck, peck)
Me: "Because out teeth need to stay clean to stay strong and white and pretty."
LB: "Why?" (peck, peck, peck)
Me: "Because the dentist said so"
LB: "Why?" (peck, peck, peck)
Me: "Because they just do"
LB: "Why" (peck, peck, peck)
Me: (Silent groan of frustration)...just because!!
And it's not just the "why's?"...it seems now her and Lucky are double-teaming me.
Lucky: "Look Mom cows!"
Me: "Yep, cows"
LB: "Cows eat mama?
Me: "Yep, cows eat out in the field"
Lucky: "What do they eat mama?"
Me: "Oh lots of stuff, hay, grass.."
Lucky: "What else?"
Me: "What do you mean?"
Lucky: "you said they eat lots of stuff, what else?"
LB: "What es mama??
Me: "I don't know, hay, grass, maybe special cow food (yes I am fully aware there is probably no such thing as special cow food, but I just want the questions to stop so I can listen to the radio).
Lucky: "What's special cow food?"
LB: "cow fod?"
Me: "I don't know...we'll ask your Dad when he gets home (this usually sidetracks Lucky and the subject gets dropped).
Lucky: silence for about 30 seconds...."what's special cow food again"?
peck, peck, peck......
Are there other Mom's out there who find them selves screaming silently in their head "for the love of all that's good and holy please stop talking for 5 minutes!!!!" By the time Cale gets home at the end of the day I'm so desperate for peace and quiet that I have to fake "tummy trouble" at least 3 times a week and go and sit in the bathroom for 20 minutes. Poor Cale must think I have IBS or some sort of weird tapeworm from China. But it's not a tapeworm...it's the chickens....
