There's nothing systematic about my desensitization
It seems like at least once a day, for the last two weeks or more, Andrew winds up translating something one of our children said for me. Many times he is just repeating for me, more loudly, what one of them has said.
I was beginning to think that I need to go get a hearing test. But here's the thing... I hear just fine. Seriously, 99% of the time, when I am away from my children, I hear great. I hear the phone ring. I hear knocks at the door. I hear the garage door open. I almost never have to ask and adult or someone on the phone to repeat themselves.
There can be only one logical answer. I've begun blocking out the sound of my children's voices.
When I was but a single gal, auntie, I used to marvel at how mothers could simply ignore their children desperately trying to get their attention. Mommy! Mommy! Mom-meeee!!!!!!! (I'm not naming any names, and I think I managed to keep my mouth shut and not judge. Here's hoping.) But now I totally understand.
There seems to be a limit to what I can or am willing to listen to on a daily basis. In the morning, when we're getting ready for the day, I am mommy-on-the-spot with all kinds of helping hands. By dinner time I am reduced to someone who not only can't hear when one of them is talking to me, can't always distinguish one voice from the three usually going at the time... And I am even sometimes sloppy about responding. Sometimes I respond to what I think I heard and don't bother to clarify.
Fortunately for me, however, I have a built in hearing aide. How so? Each evening Andrew comes home for dinner and steps in to filter whatever important is being said up to me. How can he do it after a full day of work? Perhaps sometimes the voices of small immediate needs are much more enjoyable to hear.
For me, silence is golden. It revives me and charges my batteries. Someday when too much of my time is full of this golden silence, perhaps I'll miss the cacophony. For now, even I have limits.
