On the flip side of the talking thing…

Boo Bug has been talking non-stop for {checks clock} five hours now.

Non. Stop.

Her little voice has been chattering away without so much as a pause for breath. She even talked while she was eating. With her mouth full. Though warned with quotations not to. Chitter chatter chitter chatter…it is like having a very large squirrel darting through the house.

“Do you like my skirt? It’s pink. So is my shirt. And it’s a girl skirt. Not a boy skirt. A girl skirt. Because I’m a dancing girl today. Because it’s a pink skirt. And also I have on tights. Are those earrings? I like earrings. But THEY HURT MY EARS! So I don’t want any. And my brain is going into my heart, and it might break it. And it can be invisible! Mommy! My brain? Can be invisible! And…”

She is talking to her family, her dolls, her bed, a chair (? – don’t ask me, I don’t for the life of me know why), and she is now lying across the rocking horse staring up at the ceiling and discussing something at great length with it.

Personally, I am amazed at how a child can be so adorable and so annoying at the same time. Those rosy little cheeks! Those earnest blue eyes! The bubbling little laugh! The excitement! The intense desire to be a contributing member of the community!

…the constant noise…the incessant “and you know what else?”…the never-ending poking at my arm, “Mommy? Know what? Blah blah blah blah blah! Blah? Blah! Blah? Blah!!”

There are moments when I engage in wild fantasy: I’ll tell them I’m going to go run errands. I’ll leave the car at the mall, walk to the Greyhound ‘station’ (a.k.a., the Foster’s Freeze parking lot), get a ticket to the Amtrak station…I’ll get a ticket to Seattle, but get off in Portland, ha ha! see, because that will throw off any pursuit!, and then I’ll vanish into the mountainous forests of Oregon and live a life of pure self-sufficiency in a tiny one-room cabin ha! Ha ha! HA!

But of course, I’d have to give up the Discovery Channel, the Internet…Starbucks…the endless (and I do mean endless) stream of artwork emblazoned with hearts, stars, smiling dancing figures drowning in seas of flowers, the hugs and the cuddles and the sloppy kisses and the declarations that I am the best mommy ever (said declarations usually made over dessert, going to the playground, and other such events – not so much over the ‘first you have to eat both of those peas’ or ‘no, it’s bed time’ ones).

The constant changes, the growing, the learning, watching the person they will become emerging.

The forty times a day they make me laugh.

Eh.

Guess it’s still worth it. For now.

Besides. What do I always seem to get on the bus? The seatmate from hell, who wants to talk about their sex life, their spouse, their grandchildren, their poodles/cats/rodents all the way to wherever we’re going.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m being told a very involved story about fairies and dragons and an invisible brain. It might be easier to follow if I’m not trying to do anything else…