Sunday evening Matt and I needed a few minutes to talk--without interruptions. We've learned through many years of experience that having a conversation without interruptions just doesn't happen around here. Usually we save subjects that need more than a few one-liners to address for our weekly date night, but Sunday we really needed to talk about some things related to Matt's job and it really couldn't wait until date night.
So we tried anyway. To have a conversation. With. Out. Inter. Ruptions. We told the kids, "Mom and Dad need to talk. Don't bother us." We went into our bedroom and locked the door. Implied, though not expressly stated was this command: "Don't scratch, knock or kick the door unless the house is on fire or someone is bloody."
Safely inside our locked bedroom, Matt and I began our conversation. Then we heard the fire alarm in the kitchen go off. Matt went to check it out. All was well. Something on the bottom of the oven was smoking, but things were otherwise under control.
We went back to our conversation. Then someone came to the door and started banging on it. Matt asked, "Who is it?" "Me!" was the reply. It was Jude. Then he began yelling, "Open!" "Open!" He wasn't crying. We figured he wasn't bloody, so we just ignored him. Now, where were we?
We got our conversation back on track. Then we heard the noise of a saw cutting through wood. Noises in our basement can easily be heard through the air vents in our bedroom. We paused our conversation for a minute--hope no one gets bloody. Then, once again, we resumed our conversation.
A few sibling spats, a few tears, a few door slams later and we gave up. It was a valiant effort.
So Sunday's little experiment did prove once again that it is indeed impossible to have an uninterrupted conversation in this house. The upside--the house didn't burn down and no one got bloody (although I have yet to give the basement a thorough inspection).
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