There's No Cry Shriller Than That of Your Own Child

Do any of you out there realize how incredibly loud a house with cranky, tired and sick 2- and 3-year-olds is? Their screams shake me to the bone.

When they cried today in tag team madness then in unison, I reached my breaking point, and I cried too.

If you know me personally, you know how insanely noise sensitive I am. A helium balloon gently strafing along the ceiling in my sons' bedroom woke me from a deep sleep last night. The drip of a leaky faucet could vex me to no end.

Now imagine two runny-nosed children who don't mean me any harm and have perfectly legitimate gripes due to illness screaming their blonde heads off right in my face. One saddles one of my hips. The other saddles the other of my hips. Together, a sad, crooked trio, we pace the cold wooden floor boards. I try in vain to identify distractions - the crows on the wire outside the window, a moribund cactus in our kitchen and the best biggest brother in the whole world, who is doing a jig to shush his two sick siblings. The kicker is that he is sick too. I'm blessed to have his help even when he shouldn't even be asked to help.

I'm not sure I have a point tonight other than to release the immense stress I'm feeling in response to such a sharp increase in shrill noise levels around the echo-y house.

The chaos could eat me alive.

'Reluctantly off to girls night out now. I scarcely feel like learning Bunko in such a suck mood. Although the high-pitched laughter of 14 moms collectively taking the night off from the kids is a sound I could probably tolerate. A sound I need more than anything after the day's ferocious din on the homefront. Or the silence of my head on my pillow (even if my husband says I snore).