SPRING BREAK (or why I need to start pre-drinking to prepare for summer vacation)

I'm in the thick of Spring Break.  And I'm going a little crazy.

This year my house seems louder than usual.  I don't know if it's my kids' ages or what, but my house is in a constant state of noise.  And I won't lie to you.

If my house is like this now, it has me thinking I should start pre-drinking for summer vacation.

It's taken me a few days to realize the root of my problem:  My kids all start talking at the exact same time.  I think this started happening gradually because it really crept up on me and I had no idea how good I had gotten at translating three conversations at once until earlier this week. 

We'd been driving around in a blissful silence when...I don't know what happened...they all felt the need to start talking at the exact same time.

"Did you know that the square root of 1,267 is 35.59494346111537?"

"Mom...are you Team Jacob or Team Edward?"

"What's for dinner tonight?"

I think I've gotten so used to these conversations that I didn't even think about it before I replied:

"Really?  I didn't know that. Jacob.  Pork chops."

Yesterday, though, I hit my limit.  We were in the car and my oldest daughter was talking to me about Divergent, something that my son apparently didn't hear even though she was about 24 inches away from him, because he suddenly started talking about summer camp.  And at that moment, my youngest decided she needed to pipe in and ask what we were having for dinner.

I thought my head was going to explode.

"Can you guys really not hear that someone else is talking?  That you're all talking at the same time?"

At which point they all started answering me at the same time and then my son asked me what's for dinner.

There are several problems with this.  First, this truly is an amazing skill that I've developed, but there is no room on a resume for me to put "Can carry on five different conversations at once with three different people."  The second is that none of them actually listen or pay attention to the simultaneous conversations that are going on.  So, I might be answering each one of them, but I will inevitably have to answer the same question again because the other two didn't listen to the answer I gave to the first one.

This has me spinning wheels I don't have time to spin.

I have been patient about this, explaining to the kids that interrupting is rude and the way we have been going about our conversations has been counterproductive.  They didn't get it at first, but I think I made my point this afternoon after I had been asked the same question ten different times by three different people.

And I stood in the middle of my kitchen and screamed.

Since that moment, I've had several conversations, but all at different times and no one has repeated the question that I answered with so much emphasis earlier today.

I guess having your mother turn beet red, plant her socked feet on the hardwood floor, clench her fists and scream, "WE'RE HAVING PORK CHOPS!" made quite an impression.