Our house is only one story...and it has a lot of tile. Those are two very important details when you have five children. For those of you who don’t yet get it, let me explain. Sound waves tend to bounce of hard surfaces more than they bounce of off soft surfaces. Get it now? If you are still struggling, perhaps science isn’t your thing. Maybe math is so I’ll try it this way. Noisy kids + tile floors + no upstairs to hide in = a very poor napping environment.
As I write this I can hear a door repeatedly slamming in an experimental fashion, a baby laughing as another sibling tickles her, and somehow a scooter got into the house and is being ridden up and down the noise-amplifying tile.
Fortunately the youngest of the five fell asleep in the car on the way home from church today so her nap was easy. We bought a car seat that reclines, pulled the car into the garage, covered her with a little Thomas the Tank Engine blanket and said good night. She slept blissfully for an hour untouched by the commotion in the house.
With the baby asleep, Mom and Dad thought we could capitalize on the situation. Did I mention that we had a lot of tile? Did I mention that the tile actually extends down the hall and into our bedroom before carpet takes over? Did I mention the size of the gap under the door after we replaced the old carpet with tile? Remember the math problem from earlier? Now back to the story.
So with the baby sleeping in the car and the big kids listening for her to wake up, we tried to catch a quick cat nap. Why we tried this on the day Justin got a new remote control car as a Christmas gift from his Sunday school teacher I’ll never know. Within minutes, the dog decided she was lonely and started barking so the kids would come out and play with her. At the same time the remote control car was zipping up and down the tile hallway outside our bedroom. Fortunately my wife and I were in good moods and were able to salt our frustration with a bit of a chuckle as we contemplated the futility of what we were trying to accomplish. With a good natured smile, I went out into the hall and politely asked the offending party to take the car outside and chase the lonely dog with it. He complied and immediately zoomed the car around the yard with the dog chasing it until it was right outside the sliding glass door of our bedroom and a happy tail was joyously thumping on the window.
Somehow we managed to close our eyes for a few minutes before we heard the sound of a ten-year-old lugging a now awake and semi-happy one-year-old out of the car. Praying that they bigs would be able to keep the littles happy we tried to stay asleep. Predictably, it didn’t take long for the littlest little to latch on to the door knob of our bedroom, walk in, give us both a quick and amazingly silent-but-still-deadly look-over and leave. With the door wide open.
“Party’s over,” was all I could say to the tired mommy next to me. “I don’t even know why I try this,” she replied back to me as we both rolled out of bed. No wonder we so longingly look forward to bedtime each night. At least then the house is quiet for up to an hour at a time.
No comments:
Post a Comment