There's a reason why "boys" rhymes with NOISE. My 4 year old boy is only quiet when he's asleep. My 10 month old has even picked up on the gaeity of noisemaking and has taken to singing, howling, and the usual mindless babbling. It makes for a lot of fun when I'm on the phone with my mother. Throughout the conversation I find myself wandering from room to room just to find a quiet place...to no avail. Trailing behind me are my 2 little ducklings. One asking a million questions like "Mommy, who is it? What is she saying? Tell her that I got sick once and I kept throwing up and I had to go to the hospital and they had to put a sharp thing in my arm and I got better. Hey! Hey mom! Mommy, watch this!" The baby just wants mommy to pick him up so he yells at me whenever I'm in his sights. It doesn't matter that daddy is available to hold him.

I relented and stayed in the living room so I could keep the baby from hurting himself. They both decided to play the piano while I was on the phone and I thought to myself that as much as their noise is inconvenient at times, one day I'll be in my mother's place wishing for the days when the kids were at home making a little noise. There's nothing like the big picture to make life a little sweeter.

I tried to explain to my 4 year old that the constant noises were sometimes annoying and that we don't generally communicate in that manner. When I said, "I don't call people on the phone and go..." (insert a variety of his favorite screams and nonsense words...one of which is "hansas". Don't ask me where it came from, but in order to properly use it you must make yourself sound a little like a freakishly loud Yoda. HANSAAAAAS!) He thought the whole idea was terribly funny. So funny, in fact, that he about fell off his seat laughing. Then, of course, he reinacted the event for the rest of the evening, pretending his hand was a phone up to his ear and saying the same flood of noises over again in the very sequence I came up with.

I'm reminded of the Dr. Seuss story about all the Whos down in Who-ville making so much noise. Oh the noise, noise, noise, noise! I wonder what it will be like in a year. Much more noise. I need to get used to noise. BOYS!