{"id":112,"date":"2008-08-29T17:20:20","date_gmt":"2008-08-29T23:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.parentingzoo.com\/members\/?p=112"},"modified":"2008-08-29T17:20:20","modified_gmt":"2008-08-29T23:20:20","slug":"no-pitter-patter-of-little-feet-in-this-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parentingzoo.com\/members\/?p=112","title":{"rendered":"No Pitter-Patter of Little Feet In This House"},"content":{"rendered":"

No Pitter-Patter of Little Feet In This House
\n\u00a9Lisa Barker
\n\"Photobucket\"<\/a>
\nWhy is it that my sons can\u2019t whisper when they wake up? Why must they leap from bed, yelling at the top of their lungs, bickering with each other? Isn\u2019t that bad for them? Doesn\u2019t it give them a headache? I know it gives me one.<\/p>\n

The thing is, even if I am well rested and could get up, I can\u2019t wake up and deal with this nonsense. So I have been training them to get up and read quietly in bed until I come to get them for breakfast. We\u2019re making small progress. It sounds something like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cJOHN DANIEL, MOMMA SAYS WE HAVE TO STAY IN OUR ROOM!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI KNOW THAT!\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, my bedroom door bursts open. \u201cMOMMA, ARE WE DOING A GOOD JOB? WE\u2019RE STAYING IN OUR ROOM LIKE YOU ASKED US TO DO!\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, they did it. Not a peep sounded in their room, but the phone had to ring every fifteen minutes before the alarm went off. Four calls in one hour. I think my brain is scared to slip into REM sleep. No wonder I lie awake at night, scared to drift off. Who knows what I might wake up to?<\/p>\n

I thought I\u2019d outsmart the boys one day and snooze on the sofa while they had breakfast. I thought I could wake up gradually…until the doorbell rang. It was a police officer with the five-year old. He\u2019d been running down the middle of the street like an escaped dog.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s enough to make me want to get up early and bust into their room and start bickering and screaming to see how they like it.<\/p>\n

Even the teens are sick of it and it takes a lot to wake up a teenager. Now I wake up to people shouting for the boys to SHUT UP.<\/p>\n

Why do I bother? And when will I be completely deaf? I look forward to the day that I can turn off my hearing aid. What bliss.<\/p>\n

My husband and I have been debating recently who has the harder day. Apparently, he does. With great effort he gets up every morning, slips into his car ALONE, drives to work ALONE, and works all day without children screaming at him in his office.<\/p>\n

Man, I\u2019d love to have it so rough.<\/p>\n

He says I have it easy because I can sleep in. I\u2019d like him to define \u2018sleeping in\u2019. If that means lying in bed while my temples throb and I envision the boys tearing down the house, oh, yeah. I\u2019m in seventh heaven. Just like he is when he comes home from work and one hour later he\u2019s pulling out his hair.<\/p>\n

Forget the pitter-patter of little feet. You\u2019ll never hear it over the dull roar.<\/p>\n

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\nJelly Mom\u2122 is written by Lisa Barker, author of “Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane…Doesn’t Mean You Are A Bad Parent!” and syndicated through Martin-Ola Press\/Parent To Parent. To publish Jelly Mom, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http:\/\/www.jellymom.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No Pitter-Patter of Little Feet In This House \u00a9Lisa Barker Why is it that my sons can\u2019t whisper when they wake up? Why must they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[932],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jelly-mom-column","tag-jelly-mom-column"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parentingzoo.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parentingzoo.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parentingzoo.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parentingzoo.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parentingzoo.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parentingzoo.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parentingzoo.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parentingzoo.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parentingzoo.com\/members\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}