On our first date, Lenny (as I lovingly refer to my husband) and I went to see Austin Powers. If you’ve seen it, you know that it’s packed with classic one-liners (and if you haven’t, shame on you). There’s one line in particular that’s become a theme around our house: “I’m having trouble controlling THE VOLUME OF MY VOICE!”
That’s right. This itty-bitty house has two of the loudest talking boys on the planet—no exaggeration.
When Big was 5 months old he began screaming—glass-shattering shrieks. They weren’t angry—more joyful really—but they were jarring nonetheless. Especially when they started at about 5:30am. (Did I mention this overlapped with a hotel stay, which meant that we had to duck through the halls praying no one would call us out?)
We were about to start our nanny share at the time and I was nervous Big was going to scare the other baby. I wrote to our local mom’s group asking for advice on how to curb this behavior. Though I’m sure I got many encouraging responses, I only remember one. An outraged woman said she couldn’t believe I would want to squash my child’s voice. This was his form of self-expression and I was going to kill his spirit.
Well, I certainly didn’t want to kill his spirit, but yeah, I wanted to squash—well, tame really—his screaming.
Eventually he grew out of the shrieking phase and into the babbling phase and then the talking phase. But throughout this evolution, one thing didn’t change. The volume.
When Little came along, the pattern repeated itself. Only the second time around, I actually found the shrieking funny. Probably because I knew, like all baby phases, it would pass too soon. And it did. Now we have two loud talking boys who have a lot to say and are always competing to be heard. (And these are some competitive boys.)
So if you happen to walk by our house and hear a lot of yelling, it might just be two really enthusiastic boys having an animated conversation. Then again, it might be one crazed mom who’s trying to reign in her energetic boys and is having trouble controlling THE VOLUME OF HER VOICE.
We even had our 5 yr old’s hearing checked because HE IS SO DAMN LOUD.
Too funny. Our boys both have tubes and we always wonder if that’s part of the reason they talk so loud too. Maybe it’s just the two boy combo.
I work with an adult “boy” and his wife swears that he learned to whisper in a helicopter – so you can imagine what the volume is on regular conversation. But as a grandma, I must admit that I love that volume, everybody else is just mumbling as far as I’m concerned.
Oh Jean, my ears are actually terrible. I’m always saying, “Huh? What?” So if I think they’re loud, I can only imagine what others think!
As far as I’m concerned, they can say or yell anything and I LOVE IT! And yes, I am yelling!!
We’ll be sure to send them your way soon, then.
I have a few loud boys, too. One is so loud that his whispers can be heard across the pews of the big church, and what he had to say was not always appropriate. I signed him up for theater and now, years later, that is where he has found a suitable place for his natural volume. And now, what I wouldn’t give to have that loud voice around.
Since Little tends to dance and sing everywhere we go (including church), there’s a good chance theater will call his name too (loudly, of course)!
For some reason, I notice that the volume always increases during dinner… you know, when the mouths should be closed and busy chewing… not open and yelling! 😉 Oh, and, of course… at bedtime… when mouths should be sleeping, NOT yelling …(sigh). 😉
The only time I DON’T care about volume, is when they’re singing… you know, that mindless singing they do subconsciously when they’re just content and playing or coloring or walking along… They can do that as loud as they want whenever they want 😉
Funny…we have the same dinner table issue. And I agree, singing should always be done without concern for volume. (Though I should probably officially apologize to the people sitting around us at church last Sunday since Little “sang” his way through the service.)