...the 8:15 tour is completely different from the 10:15...

I take full responsibility. There's no one else to take the fall. I talk... a lot. Daily narration. I do it, and I don't even know I'm doing it. I started doing it when the kids were younger, I'm sure it was to just talk to someone. Now that notion is almost laughable. So, it shouldn't surprise me I am rearing a house full of jabber boxes. It seems to be amplified in the female version of my offspring. That being said, Nora and I are still out numbered, so things are balanced out between far flung drama and fart jokes. However, what has become more surprising is the lack of filter...

Nora, could get a job tomorrow narrating for the blind...They would have to become accustomed to her lack of wanting to say the letters 'th'. It's all den (then), dat (that) du (the). However, what she lacks in phonics, she makes up for in her descriptive ability to properly intertwine the words magical and enchanting into a sentence about her socks. I pray she never loses the ability to talk, it might kill her. She looks at everything not only at a height of 3 foot something, but also like an old soul. I don't have to wonder how she's feeling. She'll not only prepare a brief recited essay about it, but also compose a song and dance to go along with it. The phrase that I wish she would some how erase from her vernacular is, "...at least can I (have some candy, get some ice, glue something to the wall)..." Four years old, and so burdened...

Atticus, says some words that are understood. At home with the female quotient of jabbers, it's not surprising he's picking up on our habits. Lately, however, it's as if he's giving tours to an imaginary group, wandering around the house pointing  at this and that, babbling all the way. Then for some reason, it's as if he's counting off something, and at the point of 3, it's exciting!- or at least it is in his head. He walked by Nora and I today, clearly giving his 8:15 tour, and Nora looked at me and said (and I am to blame for this), "...he's lost his little MIND!"

Now, when it comes to the 'Talls' and their filter, it gets fascinating to me. Abe has always been chatting, mainly about things he has no notion of, Oscar about things he's interested in. Don't get me wrong, we have our fair share of burp and fart challenges, Taylor Swift songs turned into songs about pooping- vast amounts of wasted brain function. However, they are rather open, and I mean will tell anyone that asks them, about their love lives. Wait, love lives? At times I wonder when they speak to each other if they forget that I am there. Abe, due to his retainers in his mouth, I am on about a 10 second delay as to what he says, still. He's fast. Oscar, out of no where will start talking, as if he's reciting a line from an after school special. The other day, I heard them talking about the 'honeys' in their school. I almost choked on what I was drinking when I heard Oscar say, "...you know so-in-so? Yeah, I could really fall for her...". Fall? What the devil does that mean in a 9 year old brain?...never mind, I'm not sure I want to know just yet. I'm flush with knowledge now of their daily goings-on, and I stop myself at times and enjoy it. I know I might have a couple of years before I am told nothing, and that will be the time I start to worry.

These things, they don't seem like a lot. They are however, a break in the monotony of my daily life...laundry, working a budget, making meals, cleaning, finding bats in toilets, changing diapers and more laundry. The fact that I can catch a glimpse of what these little people might end up being when they are my age, mind boggling. Oscar and I were talking last night, and he said something to me, that I will remind myself of, possibly for the next calendar year. We were talking about how sometimes life isn't fair, and it's hard to understand why things happen as they do. He said to me, "...I feel like our lives ended up the way they did, because someone knew we would be okay having just you, like you're strong enough to do all this for us..." At that moment, I was never so grateful for my overly verbal, non-filtered, phonetically challenged, babbling blessings...