November 6, 2011
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quiet little loud one
Little loud one has not been such this weekend. She had a fever for 2 days and pretty much just laid on the couch, snuggling with ninjamicrokitten, drinking ginger ale, and watching nonstop tv. This morning dawned with the fever gone and my needing an end to the quietness. Because really, this kid needs to be noisy. She’s not herself unless she’s breaking eardrums and so on. A quiet little loud one is a crime against nature.
I had a plan. I figured a guarantee to get some volume outta this kid would be to tell her to clean her room or practice her drum. I left the house to do my duty to all humanity with the plan in place. I would walk in the door and make that demand and let the ruckus begin. Apparently the spouse and I were on the same page, because when I returned home (from doing my duty to all humanity), the ruckus was in full swing. There’s the little loud one singing the “I want to go outside to play and there’s no way I’m practicing my drum” song. And I do mean singing. The words are very clever. They are: I want to go outside to play. and. There’s no way I’m practicing my drum. Sometimes separate, sometimes together. It’s good music. The other symphony in the ruckus was the lament of the fever stealing her weekend. We all know that the last thing she wanted to do this weekend was lay around watching tv.
A couple summers ago, little loud one did some summer camps. The director got a twitch every morning when she walked in. This child has no inside voice. Sometime at the end of that summer, we saw him outside at some kind of festival. He greeted little loud one like he was happy to see her. She was very quiet in her response. He was dumbfounded, really, until we called it her “outside voice.” We got a lot of mileage out of telling her to use her “outside voice” when we wanted her to talk more quietly. When she’s being particularly loud, I’ll ask her if she needs a megaphone. Of course she doesn’t. It doesn’t help with the volume, but it does help me laugh about it. We often laugh about her “going to 11″ ala Spinal Tap. Because she does. Go to 11.
It has now been an hour. The ruckus has changed form. She spent a solid 30 minutes writing the perfect plan for the afternoon, which includes the 30 minutes of drum practice, so I’m ok with it. It also includes watching a movie, because apparently there wasn’t quite enough screen time yesterday. Still no actual practicing, but I’m ok with that too. And playing the ukelele, because no day is complete without that. It’s all good. Because there’s a plan and it’s not a quiet one.
Comments (14)
I like this, “You have a choice to make. You can clean your room or you can play your drum.” Now that choice is hard to beat. pun intended
@vexations - rum pa pa pum. ruh pa pa pum. (little drummer… girl)
gah, i’m glad i didn’t have no childrens … you sound like you got the plan down and know what to do … kudos!!
@windupherskirt - are you freaking kidding me? i never know what the hell i’m doing. if we live through it, i call it a success.
@promisesunshine -
… my youngest sister and I are “childless” and joke (sorta) that if we had chosen to have chilrens, we wooda kilt ‘em and be in jail! 
@windupherskirt - there are days. ok. moments every day. but the free labor is good. i’ve heard.
@promisesunshine - free labor?
… i thought that refers to “back in the day” … like 50 or 60 years ago! 
@windupherskirt - i’ve heard. never actually benefited from the free labor, myself.
she does sound a bit too subtle.
@be_the_rain - she takes after her mother thattaway. dontchaknow.
Way to go on getting her to make a plan and hopefully she stocks to it. One of my boys was always clean and the other one was a real pain to get to do anything. As adults they are both slobs-geez:)
Glad the kiddo’s on the mend! It’s hard seeing them not themselves.
@gayXianmom - thanks. it sure is.
hahahahaha…. your use of child psychology is wonderfully effective !!!!!
