. . . you have to be still and quiet, right, daddy? Still and quiet if you want to do a birdwatch. Be quiet now, daddy, you hear me? Be quiet and still if you want to do a birdwatch. You sit there and I’ll sit here and we’ll do a birdwatch, OK? OK, daddy? OK? Did you see the bird, daddy? We’re doing a birdwatch, but you have to be quiet and still.
Me: Hee!
I told people for years that if I ever had a little girl I would be worthless. Well, at age 42, I had a little girl, and I’m worthless. She could wrap me around her finger when she was first born; heaven help me when she gets to be a teenager.
All I can say is, “Wow! You must be following me around or have a camera on my person somewhere I can’t find.”
Just last week I went in for my annual physical checkup and as I was in the waiting room for the lab, sitting there with half a dozen other geezers with sour expressions on our faces and nothing to say, what might have been total silence was this continual high-pitched insistent whining of what had to be a 3-year-old (I couldn’t see her because the guy next to me was the size of a meat locker and was leaning forward enough to obscure that side of the room.) There had to be an adult with her, I figured, but there was no conversation, just that kid going 90-to-nothing about everything that passed through her brain.
After maybe 10 minutes of non-stop chatter, the mother got up and went across the hall to the window to ask something I couldn’t hear, but whatever she was told was enough that she and the kid left. I muttered to the meat locker as quietly as I could, “That little girl sure loves to talk.” He just nodded and grinned.
The weird thing was that the mother must have been seriously distracted (or numb or used to it all) because she did nothing to quiet the child and if she had had any sense of the effect that chatter had on us geezers she might at least have shot us all a bird or something as rude.
Now tell me, how did you know this had just happened to me?
She’s probably immune to it and doesn’t even hear it any more!
Which reminds me (tangentally) of a sad story of a lovely wee boy who used to take the same bus as me in the mornings. He was an absolute chatterbox and was always pointing things out with glee and trying to make conversation with anyone who would talk to him…whilst all the time his mother would be telling him to shut up and sit down and can’t you ever behave properly and look at your face it’s so dirty and don’t pick that up and don’t leave your bag on the floor and be quiet, can you not shut up for one single moment…rinse, repeat.
He’s about 5 and still full of life and positivity. Wonder how much longer it’ll take for her to suck it all out of him.
Excellent points all, and your story reminds me too much of one my boss told after returning from a business trip to Australia many years ago (the boss has since passed on, but was one of the funniest people I’ve known, and his telling of the yarn was priceless).
He was at the beach there and began observing a middle-aged woman with two small children playing in the sand and after they had dug a lot of sandcastles and such she began packing up all their gear to leave. In addition to an armchair, an umbrella, some toys and towels and a cooler, she had to haul the littler kid in what was left of her “free” arm. As they were walking past my boss and were entering the parking area, the little boy began banging on a new Mercedes as hard as he could with his sand shovel. Without missing a beat the woman said, “Geoffrey, if you break that shovel you’ll not get another.”
I still laugh thinking about Bill’s way of telling that.
There’s something about that age that turns some kids into non-stop talkers. My niece was like that, which made roadtrips more trying than they would otherwise be.
There was a time when my mom was driving somewhere with my niece and nephew. Niece had been chattering away about nothing for at least 20 minutes, when my nephew saw something out the window and tried to comment on it.
Niece: “Jamey, I was talking!”
Mom: “Why don’t you give Jamey a chance to talk? He’s been waiting very patiently.”
Niece: (dramatic sigh) “FINE.”
Jamey: (one sentence about a heron he saw fishing in the bay)
Niece: “OK, it’s my turn again. Now what was I saying? Hmm, I don’t remember. Oh well. I’ll just make something up.” (starts away on a new topic)
Heh, love it, RR. This past week I watched for probably 20 minutes as a pair of Carolina Wrens flittered around protectively while their 2 or 3 very young charges looked for food in our backyard. They were fascinating, cute and I was thrilled when my daughter returned from horseback and joined me in the yard. “Look sweetie, at this and this and this… but you’ve gotta be real still.”
Still lasted for all of 15 seconds… then she was walking up to them for a closer look, askin’ questions and then off runnin’ and playin’ and being a 7 year old and, again, it was just me and the birds.
“I like to talk a lot when I come to see you because I don’t see you so much and when I see you it’s fun to be able to talk a lot. Don’t you think it’s fun to talk a lot? 'Cause I love it when I get to talk with you a lot when I’m visiting you.” (Imagine that without a breath in between words or sentences. Followed by, and proceeded by entire paragraphs, nay essays, on other subjects. For about 20 minutes. Nonstop. I finally gave up and started a video.)
Wouldn’t it be terrible if that had been her strategy all along?
I’ve always enjoyed the little game of nodding, saying “uh huh”, smiling, giving all sorts of visual clues that not only am I really into what this person is saying and really eating it up, but that I’m really happy that they’ve chosen me to share it with, until they pause and ask me something like, “what do you think?” or “know what I mean?” or one of those pauses for breath. At that point I’ll say something like, “Oh. I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening.”
I’ve got one of those, and her sister isn’t far behind. They are a chip off the ol’ block. This I know because my father had a shirt made for me when I was 3yrs old that read, “Mighty Mouth.”
Hey, Mom! Hey, Mom! Mom! MOM! Mommy! Mommy! Mooooooommmy!
What?
Um. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mom! You know who came to our school the other day? Santa’s Grandma! She was really nice. You know what else? Our teacher works with the Easter Bunny! He came to our school! He brought candy! Can I have some candy? You know what I want? I want a trampoline. Don’t worry. I won’t jump on it. I just want to lie on it and look at the clouds. Can I have a trampoline? Maybe Santa will bring me one for Christmas. I want a trampoline and a pogo stick and an umbrella. Did I eat a good dinner yet? Can I have a treat after dinner? How many bites of broccoli do I have to eat? You know what? I don’t like this pink cup. I wanted my cup with the bunny on it. You know what? We need to paint the Shrek back on my Shrek cup. We can use Daddy’s paint brushes. I like to paint. We can paint the Shrek and the Donkey back on the cup and then it will look good as new.
