Let's play the quiet game... PLEASE

First, let me say, the dulcet tones of my child's voice are among - nay, are - the sweetest sounds on earth to this adoring mommy's ears. (Actually, it's her laugh. And S is the only one who can truly conjure those giggles, and while I once thought that would make me jealous, it doesn't in the slightest. My favorite thing lately is taking a nearby backseat and watching the two of them entertain one another.) And the things she comes up with are - most of the time - worth listening to. For instance:

"I like to wear my ballerina-tard." (An understatement of the truest form - when she's not wearing it she carries it around in her "dance bag," along with every other piece of crap she owns, most especially her beloved green goggles.)

And a few nights ago she introduced and mastered the zrbrt, so each bedtime since has devolved into a series of "Daddy, let me blow your cheek," and raucous, escalating guffaws. Most of them from me. When she discovers that my giggle box (was that just my dad?) has yet to mature past the age of 13 I am done for.

Tonight was one of those nights when the evening was so much fun that we just didn't want to put her to bed. Which, of course, I always regret when I'm still running upstairs to refill water cups and make potty trips (what? you think these are related?) at 10pm. Hey - it's summer. And as much as I want to have another baby (I do, right? I don't just want to because "they" might tell us we can't, or shouldn't, right?), on nights like this I can't help feeling how absolutely FULL our life is right now. With her. I know this is completely trite because everyone who has a kid feels this way - but she is quite simply everything. So at least I know that if she is the only one we get, she's enough. Plenty, even. And that's not so bad.

BUT. The child never. stops. talking.

I knew it was coming. I, too, was (am?) a particularly loquacious child. And now, lo, I feel my parents' auditory pain. My mother endured the 4-hour car ride to our annual family beach vacation this year, because S was already working on the coast that week and met us down there, and she just laughed and laughed when J spouted off for 10 minutes - non-stop - about the whys and wherefores of playing the quiet game. Explaining to us, over and over and over again, that we must BE QUIET.

Today in the car she asked me to tell her a story, and the only way to get a break from the soliloquy that is J is to respond to her request for stories-on-demand, so I complied with a charming ditty about Fannie and her poor, sainted mother whose EARS FELL OFF from the strain of listening to so much constant chatter.

And she's not even THREE yet.