ciroccoj | Una Empanada de Espinaca

It's really interesting, the stuff you have to come up with when you lose the ability to yell. In the last couple of days, I've been realizing just how much I depend on yelling for long-distance, emergencies, and dealing with space-out and tantrums and misbehaviour. Examples?

"DAAANiel!!! Are you upstairs?! Where's your Magic Treehouse book?!"

"CAR!!!"

"Daniel, come get your dinner." ::pause:: "Daniel!" ::pause:: "DANIEL! YO! DINNER!"

"Sweetie, don't worry, you'll find your new Bionicle. Shh. Sweetie, you're freaking out. Shhh. HEY!! LISTEN UP!! ::pause:: That's better. Now settle yourself down, and listen to me. The Bionicle is in this room. You will find it."

"JUSTIN!! PUT DOWN THAT STICK RIGHT NOW!!"

I can't do any of that right now. So I've been clapping, Psssst-ing, making the boys come right up to me when I need to talk to them, and using all sorts of signals to communicate the various orders and requests and responses that you have to communicate when you're dealing with small people.

And they've been responding fairly well, and making me realize that I really don't need to yell as much as I do. Yes, sometimes as a parent you need the volume to get across the urgency/weight of whatever you're trying to say, but it's so easy to get into the habit until you sound more like a Sargeant Major than a mom.

Not only that, but I've also been compensating for my lack of voice by making them do stuff that I normally do for them. Like, for example, today after Justin's dance class, when we stopped by the Cocina Latina on the way home. Daniel had just reviewed his Spanish numbers and done a segment on food vocabulary, so he was perfectly able to order, in his cute little anglo accent, "Una empanada de espinaca, dos empanadas de queso, y tres empanadas de carne por favor." (One spinach, two cheese, and three beef empanadas please).

I should really try to remember this stuff after I get my voice back. Chris calls it "Better parenting through illness" :)