Silence IS golden

I have discovered that my children can not be quiet. OK, really I've known that for a long time. But seriously I've only lately come to realize that they can not be quiet if their lives depended on it. Jayden would be so dead if he had to be quiet to save his life.

He can't even do it for a few seconds. Sure he can stop talking. But then the toe starts tapping, or the finger starts clicking the pen he's holding. Or he starts to hum. And then after a few seconds, he forgets he's not supposed to talk, and talks again! And then he's tapping the book on his lap, banging his head softly on the window....do you get the picture. The child cannot handle being quiet, nor can he handle silence around him!

And his brothers have a hard time when it's quiet it too. They have a little better handle on being quiet themselves, but they want constant noise around them. I'm sure it's partly due to the fact that five boys create a lot of noise and so that's what they are used to. But I think it's also a symptom of our society's obsession with being entertained all the time.

So I've practiced with them in the car a few times. It's not very pretty to start with. They are very resistant to practicing it. But once I get them going and in the groove, they do handle it. Now to practice enough that they can handle it for more than ten minutes!

I had planned on practicing with them in the car today, however it turned out that it was much better to either listen to a cd, or on the way home, we played the name game.

Where you name a famous person and then the next person has to come up with a name where the person's first name starts with the same letter as the previous famous person's last name begins with. Confused?

So if the first person said George Washington, then the next person has to come up with some one whose first name starts with W, such as Willie Nelsen. The rules vary according to the group you play with. Mostly you can't reuse a name, they have to be real people and most of the car has to agree that the name is legit. And if you are really stumped others can give you hints if they want. If you can't come up with a name you're out for the rest of that game.

We were hard core growing up, but there was just us two kids and usually Mom. Not much fighting going to happen there. Far fewer people to get restless if you took awhile to come up with a name. Our group today was two adults and six kids tired out from a day at the museum. So we were pretty flexible, after all we allowed fictitious names! Mickie Mouse comes to mind, followed by Minnie Mouse, and I know we got a Donald Duck in there too.... And lots and lots of hints....did I mention lots of hints.

So while I had good intentions, it turned out that flexibility was the name of the game and we played a word game instead. It kept their minds occupied and we had far less crankiness after we started the game.