5 Minute Friday - Quiet

My mom stops by for a visit, “Do you mind if I take Avie for a W-A-L-K?”
“No, that’s fine. Avie, do you want to go for a walk with Oma?”
”Oh yes!”, she exclaims, clapping her hands excitedly. “I love my Oma!”
”Oma loves you too, Avie.”

For a few minutes I have quiet. Babies are still napping in their cribs, Avelyn is outside enjoying the beautiful sunshine and the sharp November air. What should I do in these few stolen moments of quiet? I have no idea. It certainly won’t last long enough to really get into anything.

I roll out the crusts for the 2 apple pies I’m making for our church fundraiser dinner tomorrow night. Enjoying that all I can hear is the dishwasher whirring, the DVD playing that annoying loop music it does on the menu screen, and the clickety-clack of my fingers pounding out words in this quiet.

Quiet.

The thing I seek so desperately sometimes. The thing that is elusive, when I need it most, to gather my thoughts, to think about how I should respond {not react} to any one of the number of things these 4 crazy-kids of mine concoct. The thing that I stay up way too late at night to enjoy. Looking at the clock, thinking, “Is it really already 10:30? I really need to get to bed!” Then I stay up at least another hour puttering around the house.

What’s funny, is sometimes this quiet, is more deafening then the noise of 4 kids. It roars in my ears, leaving me feeling windblown and harried, not knowing what I should do, because I must DO something when it’s quiet. And then, those are the moments when I miss the noise and would gladly trade all the quiet in the world for the cacophony of cries, babblings, complaints and blubbers, always, ALWAYS punctuated with the squeals of giggles that are elicited when mommy clambers down to the floor,willing to be a human monkey bars.

And just like that, the quiet is gone. Ave is banging on the front door, holding the hand of the mud-caked Oma {who fell in the river behind our house –She refused to let me take a picture}, and then Jamesie and Henry are starting to screech for someone to get them out of their cribs.

Oh, QUIET, how I never seem to know what to make of you.

Join me? For Five Minute Friday with Lisa-Jo Baker.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..