With three small children, our house is the opposite of quiet. The screaming, yelling and “NO MY TURN”s vibrate the house from dawn until dusk. Occasionally, there is silence, which is followed by the realization that something really bad is going on or is about to happen.
For each kid, silence means something different.
Landon is 10 months and quiet means that he is eating something he shouldn’t. Like a roly-poly, paper, socks, crayons, shoes or any leftovers from the previous meal that survived the hospital-grade floor scrubbing that occurs after each meal. The silence is short lived and soon will be replaced with hacking and choking, then giggling.
Adalyn is just a couple months past her two year birthday and her quiet time is filled with coloring on things that she is not supposed to. Like couches, wood floors, walls, tables, windows, laundry, toilets, dishwashers and 10-month old brothers. She will act so sorry and apologetic when you catch her, then will go right back to her non-paper coloring canvas the second your back is turned.
Ben is four years old and isn’t nearly as sneaky as his siblings. When he’s doing something wrong, he puts forth no effort to hide it. During his potty training years, it was a different story and his silence was very predictable. We got into a habit of telling him to go poop any time he had been quiet for more than 30 seconds.
