As I help my preschool daughter put on her dress, I hear a loud crash in the dining room where my toddler is coloring. Instantly, I can identify the most probable source of the noise. After a few years of mom-hood, you learn to distinguish various noises to figure out what is going on. I swear that I can even hear it when someone drops a single moist macaroni on the floor.
You can hear the scratch scratch of scribbling on the wall and tell whether it is coming from a pencil (not the end of the world, I’ll get to it later), a crayon (more work, but still washable), a pen (how on earth did he get that and where is my magic eraser) or a permanent magic marker (Ahhh no, please no!).
You can tell whether someone is only bouncing on the edge of a bed while sitting, or doing full on jumping up and down on that bed, and which bed it might be. (I could have saved Papa and Mama Bear a lot of guesswork.)
You can hear the toilet paper tube being unravelled across the bathroom floor and the tissue box being emptied. Heck, you can even hear it when the toilet brush is being extracted from the holder for use as a makeshift sword.
My husband has recently started working from home a few days a week. He has his office set up in the basement, and is surprised by some of the strange sounds that occur in a home with kids throughout the day. I came downstairs one day and listened carefully at the dryer for a minute before nodding and then opening the door. I reached in and extracted a pink foam princess crown sticker, much to the amazement of my stunned husband. Next, we heard a strange sound coming from the floor above. “What was that?” he asked. “That is about a hundred colored paperclips hitting the floor. I have a box in the drawer in the kitchen.” I think I gained some new respect with that one.
Do you have the Mommy Sense of Hearing? What is the funniest thing you have ever heard in your home?
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, creating a home in the Home Blog and caring for little ones in the Baby Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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