If you want a lesson in focus, try having a conversation with your partner while your kids are home.
At the end of every day, when Husband and I have put away our work for the evening, we try to have a quick run-down of what happened—highs and lows that we’ll share, somewhat, at the dinner table but in a kid-friendly way. Husband is usually finishing up dinner and I’m usually hovering and stealing pieces of the turkey burgers he’s making, while he tells me about all the contacts he made today and I tell him about all the words I wrote (one of these is clearly more interesting than the other). We’re interrupted an average of forty-five times in a five-minute conversation. And when we turn our attention to the kids, usually they forget what they were going to say in the first place.
The other time that we can nearly always count on (halting) conversation is when all the kids are strapped in the car and we’ve turned up the radio, full blast, so we don’t have to hear boys tattle. That doesn’t work, of course, and oftentimes, Husband and I will wish for a police car glass separating the front seat from the back. Why aren’t there cars like this made for parents yet?
In any of the instances when we think it would be a perfect time to approach a conversation, we are invariably and constantly unsuccessful.
Conversations when you’re a parent really have one defining quality about them: constant interruption.
It doesn’t matter at what point in the conversation you are. You could be almost all the way done with what you need to say, and miracle of all miracles no one has needed you for the last fifteen minutes—but now you’ve gotten to the most important part. And, of course, one of your kids will need you as soon as you start in on the finale. They will need you for the silliest of things—one will wonder how many galaxies are in the solar system, and you won’t have the slightest clue. Another will need you to ask what 4,567 multiplied by 9,327 is, as if you’re some kind of math whiz and didn’t forget how to even add numbers after you finished your required college algebra class.
Sometimes you’re interrupted because they happen to hear their name, even if they’re in the middle of singing their favorite song at the top of their lungs. They will hear their name and perk up and then proceed with an interruption to ask what you’re talking about. I remember my mother calling me Rabbit Ears, because I could always hear my name even when she was saying it a couple of rooms removed from mine, to someone other than me. Well, now I understand this phenomenon. I have been blessed with six rabbits, and one who will, without fail, interject into the conversation the question, “Are you talking about me?” The others, at least, will close their mouths and quietly listen.
Even if we whisper their names, they will hear it. We’ve done it just to test this theory. It’s quite astounding, because they can’t seem to hear their names when we’re actually talking to them. Weird.
We’ve tried to teach our boys to say “Excuse me” or “Pardon me” or to wait until a break happens in the conversation to tell us what they have to say, unless, of course, it’s an emergency. (The emergency definition gets a little lost in translation, too, but that’s a topic for another day.) On the good days, a boy will place his hand on one of our arms and wait patiently for the talker to finish—but it is extremely hard to finish a point when you have large brown eyes staring at you like they’re wondering if you’re ever going to be done talking. If that doesn’t steal your thought from the track down which it barreled, then you are more skilled at conversation than I am.
When you’re a parent, conversations with your partner will sometimes last for days—and if you’re really, really good, weeks. Sometimes you’ll even think you had the conversation and you didn’t at all. It was only wishful thinking. You will have mapped out the entire conversation in your head, and then on the day of your doctor’s appointment, your partner will say, “I didn’t know you had a doctor’s appointment,” and you will get mad at him, because he never listens to anything you have to say, when the real explanation is that the conversation never happened at all, except in your head. You were communicating with a figment of your own imagination.
Other times, you’ll forget that you already told your partner something, and you’ll delightedly repeat the same story twice, to a bored and disappointing reception.
There are so many times that I am right in the middle of saying something and one of my boys will start crying because a brother kicked his lip and made it bleed, or maybe someone just needs us to know that his poop was green today, and I can’t for the life of me remember what I was saying. Have you heard the old saying “If you forget what you were trying to say, it must not have been all that important?” It turns out that if you forget what you’re saying in the middle of saying it because your kids interrupted you, there is no guarantee that it is not important. I know, because none of my boys had signed permission slips for their field trips this year, because I forgot to tell their daddy they were due.
Husband and I have had the longest conversations with the fewest words while living with six boys. Here’s an example of one of those conversations:
Me: Hey, I wanted to talk about the supplies that we’ll need for this weekend’s birthday party.
Husband: Let’s make a list.
Kid 1 interruption: Mama, my brother took the ball from me.
Me: [mediating a fight over a superhero ball that is completely flat. Someone wants to play soccer with it, even though it’s a flattened ball. Someone else wants to wear it as a hat. Everyone had it first.]
Fast forward half an hour.
Husband: Now what was that again?
Me: I forgot what we were talking about.
Husband: Me too.
[Collective laughter.]
Me: Oh, yeah, the birthday party.
Kid 2 interruption: Mama?
Me: I’m talking to Daddy. Just wait a minute. Don’t be rude. Remember what we taught you about interrupting?
[Kid 2 places a hand on my arm and watches me intently.]
Me: I can’t think. Let me just see what he wants.
[Engaged with a kid who wants to know if he can start a business selling art. Today. Right this minute.]
Fast forward another half hour.
Husband: [with a good amount of sarcasm.] Back so soon?
Me: Where were we?
Husband: I don’t think we’d even gotten started.
Me: The birthday party. You said something about ca—
Kid 3 interruption: Excuse me, Daddy?
Husband: Mama and Daddy are talking. Please don’t interrupt.
[Kid 3 places a hand on Daddy’s arm and watches intently for a break in the conversation.]
Me: So cake and plates and cups.
Husband: I’ll make a list and pick some up at the store.
Me: That would be good.
Husband: Chocolate?
Me: Yes. And green.
Husband: Snacks?
Me: Yes. And make sure the cups are recyclable.
Husband: Got it.
Me: One more thing—
Kid 1 interruption: [crying] Mama, Daddy?
Husband: Maybe we should talk later.
Kid 1: My brother hit me.
Husband: [turning to Kid 2] What did you want?
Kid 2: I forgot. You were talking so long.
Kid 1: Can we watch a movie?
Kid 3: Did you know that a shark can smell blood from 40,000 miles away?
When Husband and I “finish” a conversation, it’s usually a day after we actually start it, when kids are entertained out on the trampoline until someone takes a leap into someone else’s knee and comes in limping to tell us all about it—with a little exaggeration thrown in for good measure.
All I know is that my focus is much more efficient now. I can keep a running commentary going in my head all day. The real challenge is remembering what I’ve actually said to Husband and what I’ve only said in my imagination.
Ah, well. Husband and I won’t even finish the argument we’ll have before a kid will interrupt us with a stink bomb and a proud declaration that they win the Rotten Smell Tournament.
As if one ever existed.
This is an excerpt from This Life With Boys, the third book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
Photo by This Is Now Photography.
