That Quiet Spot in my Room

Dane's been making this very unnatural sound lately. It's an expression of frustration or dislike, as when I tell him to turn off Spiderman and go brush his teeth and get in bed. It sounds something like a "HUH", but very drawn out and in a high-pitched squeek.

I've told him over and over again not to make that sound. It grates on my nerves and it just sounds nasty. Yesterday, Deanna and I were on the way to get our hairs cut (in French, the term really is "hairs"), when Dane started making that noise in the van. My skin started to crawl and I began the lecture, yet again, about not making that ugly noise.

"You sound like a sheep with a stomach ache," I told him.

Huge mistake. Huge. Now Dane's making the noise more than ever just so his siblings can yell, "The sheep with a stomach ache", and roar with laughter. Coming home from the hair appointment yesterday, Daelyn laughed non-stop. Even that got irritating after a while. Apparently, he thought this whole sheep thing was hilarious and couldn't quite get over it. At least, it was a genuine laughter and not a fakey, forced-kind.

As I sat down at the computer, I could hear the children in the kitchen. They get to ride to school today, Dane on his bike and Deanna on her scooter, with Don following along in the van. They were putting coats on and suiting up with helmets and backpacks, and the racket was almost deafening. Deanna was belting out arias from Phantom of the Opera while Dane and Daelyn were having a laugh shouting match - see who could yell the funniest thing the loudest before they broke into peels of laughter themselves.

And Don wonders why I'm so desperate to have HIM deal with the kids by the time he gets home from work at night. Unfortunately, his exposure is so minimal (and, in truth, his personality so different from mine) that it doesn't seem to phase him at all. He just tunes it out and goes about his routine. I, on the other hand, am considering renting an apartment nearby that I can escape to as soon as he walks through the door at night.

We had planned on our Master Suite being that apartment when we first added on to our house. It's huge and I had dreams of putting a couch in it. I invested in a beautiful stained-glass oriental lamp and had a lovely natural wood table with two shelves in the shape of a heart to put next to the couch with the lamp on. I put them against the long wall facing the bed in anticipation of finding just the right couch and even had a recessed light put in the ceiling over that area. I had dreams of locking myself in, curling up with a good book and a cup of hot tea (darn, I forgot a mini kitchen with a hotplate for making tea in my bedroom), and relaxing to the sounds of classical music while the children raged outside the door with their father supervising. I even bought this lovely, soft taupe throw blanket to go over the couch that matches the color of my bedroom walls in preparation for "the day".

Instead, my parents decided that my lovely, empty wall (waiting for the right couch to come along) was the perfect spot for their room-size, 2-piece sewing center. My mother had this piece of furniture made for her when we lived in Taiwan next door to a furniture factory (by factory, I mean a tar-paper shack with several thatched extensions, a few people milling around, and lots of noise, but which actually produced beautiful custom-made teakwood furniture). Many years ago, when Mom and Dad moved into their retirement home, they had a special room built on the back for Mom's sewing center. However, she now does little sewing and decided that room could be put to better use, so what to do with this huge piece of furniture? Oh, yeah, Patti's got room in her new empty house - let's send it over there!! My lovely wall and 1/3 of my total bedroom space is now home to a teakwood catch-all. There's no space for a couch and, even if I had one in my room, we've discovered that these hardwood floors do not absorb ANY noise, they just bounce it around through out the house, so there is no peace and quiet anywhere within these brick walls.

And, my children have no concept at all of the purpose of closed doors. They seem to have some misconception that you close a door to keep heat or cold inside or out, including interior doors. I'll be in the bathtub when the door will fly open and in will stomp one of the children.

"Mom, my sipper is empty. Would you please put some more milk in it?" or "Mama, I'm having trouble with this math problem. I don't really understand. Can you look at it and explain it to me?" or "Mommy, Daelyn hit me over the head. I think he needs a spanking."

Being the sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek person at heart that I am, my response is usually, "Sure. I'll get right on that," quickly followed by, "Where is your father?"

Inevitably, the response is, "On the computer." It's not that Don purposely ignores the children, he just doesn't seem to hear the noise and rumble. I've often suspected he secretly puts earplugs in before he opens the door to the house every evening. Either that or he's taught his brain to ignore the sounds emitted by his offspring. In any case, Daddy doesn't get asked to refill sippers, to help with Math, or to discipline Daelyn - Mommy's chased down, regardless of what she's doing.

Have you never heard of locks, you might ask. Oh, believe me, I've tried. But my children don't understand a locked door any more than they do a closed door. They will kick it, bang on it, yell through it, try and pass notes under it and, in general, completely ignore in every way possible a locked door. It's pretty hard to relax when Daelyn has his face smashed on the floor with his mouth against the bottom of the door, yelling under it, "Are you there, Mommy? Are you okay? Why is the door locked?" while Dane is shrieking, "Daddy, something's wrong with Mommy. She's not talking!!!!!" and Deanna's walking down the hall, with the sound reverberating both off the walls and the hardwood floors and bouncing right into my room, belting out "The Point of No Return" from a musical which shall remain nameless.

The whole situation is much worse than just lying on my bed with the door wide open. Occasionally, the children will walk right past the door and not even look to see if I'm in the room. But a closed or, God forbid, locked door, draws them like a magnet.

So, Mom gets a little crazy by evening, Daddy remains completely unmoved, and the children continue to dance their little dance of putting Mommy in an early grave.

Mercy, Lord, falling like raindrops from Heaven. Lots of it, please.