Some days I wish I could just have quiet. They claim silence is golden but I would go for just quiet. For my boys some days quiet is a commodity worth its weight in gold and rarer than blue diamonds. In modern society we just can't GET silence. We are surrounded by sound, white noise fills our days and while we may tune it out some of our children never can. Today thankfully my Second born had his summer program so he was gone most of the day or it would have been very rough for him as he is the most sensitive of the four to noise.
My youngest seems to think that in order for him to keep from being ignored he must make his demands at the top of his lungs, in a high squeaky voice he states is actually "Chicky" his toy Griffin. "Inside voice" is a concept to which he has NO desire to adhere to nor abide by. This of course results in the Third born responding by raising HIS voice to drowned out the Fourth born. My oldest just tunes them BOTH out and turns up the volume on whatever electronic device he has managed to focus on at the moment. This leaves me with a pounding headache by the end of the day and dreaming of peaceful streams, wooded paths and my long unused hiking boots.
It is days like today when I wonder about my sons who struggle with volume and noise management. My Second born picks up EVERYTHING, every little sound, and has to attempt to filter through them and determine which is important and which is not. Where my First born BLOCKS sound out, becoming SO focused on a particular subject that he is completely oblivious to anything and everything around him. Even though his hearing IS fine, he just doesn't process the information. Having such opposite extremes in the same household shows me again how amazing my children are while raising different challenges.
I personally like to have music going in while I work as it covers the sounds I find annoying such as computer games, vacuum cleaners and washing machines. Some times the boys tolerate it, other times they don't. However I also know that putting on a set of headphones is out of the question as it would block out my ability to hear things such as doors opening. For my Birthday this year I asked if I could get an Ipod. Before I had always just used a radio or CD player. My hope is by having a variety of music options available we might be able to come up with more compromises. Sometimes they will let me listen to music IF it is something they also like.
So for now I just enjoy those few quiet moments I get after they have all fallen to sleep LATE at night. Morning comes ALL to soon. School is rapidly approaching and with that more day time hours that I have been told are filled with "quiet time". We will see. I am sure I will fill it with projects. I am good at that.
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