Shh
I have just escaped a very noisy dinner table. Oh my aching ears! Amelia was shouting her latest round of nonsensical jokes, Lily was screeching and Big-P was trying to distract her with a loud-voiced bee hand puppet.
Yesterday morning I found a wonderful way to buy a few moments of silence.
“The first person to speak loses!”
and Amelia is silent… silent… silent… for as long as I can be quiet for myself. If there’s one thing she like more than talking it’s winning.
That is such a good idea!!I do something similar with my friend’s 6yr old when she stays over‚Äî we have a competition to see who can stay in bed the longest in the morning, and whoever gets up first has to make brekky. It pretty much guarantees I’ll be able to get up at a reasonable hour.
I may have to steal that, my four year old didnt start talking till she was nearly three and she is certainly makes up fo it. She talks so much that i have trained my ears not to hear her all the time.
haha that joke is so cute.
Reminds me of our bedtime contests to see, not who could sleep (no, no, no), but who keep keep their eyes shut the longest. 🙂
So glad the silence game works! We love it here.
Genius!!! 🙂
Genius!
When my brother & I were kids we had a rhyme for when we were trying to get to sleep (usually initiated by him.)
Silence in the jungle,
Silence in the dark.
The biggest idiot in the world is just about to talk,
Starting from… now.
We only shared a room when we were on holiday, and I always had hayfever, so there were some allowances “2 coughs , 4 sniffs”
Ahh, the quiet game. It doesn’t work on Caleb at all and only briefly on Logan.
I think we are living the same life with a few minor differences (I live in the US with two boys) but the same exact issues!!!! The jokes, the talking, the competition…all the same!
I am going to give your idea a try and see if it brings silence my way. 🙂
my parents played that game with my brother and i when we were kids. the quiet game!
Everyone knows “the quiet game” except for a friend of mine who always played “buddhist monk” instead. Silence AND cultural awareness!-c
Hello your post reminded me of a game I used to play with my tiny nephews when I was a teenager and they had worn me to the ground it was called “who-could-be-the quitest-the -longest” and involved lying down, totally still and quite abit like vertical musical statues without the music. I can’t say it latest very long but it used to work for ooo at least 3 five minutes.
When they got a bit bigger I used to bury them in the sand and shape mounds of sand into turtle shells above their bodies (heads well free of the sand of course)this used to keep them quiet for a bit too.
These days all my nephews are over six foot 🙂
I must try that one. My son hates losing too.
I’m so glad the quiet game works. It NEVER worked for my sister and I when we were little… but it did give Mom 30 seconds of silence. Then she would send us to our rooms. My 4 year old is doing the same thing Amelia is with her jokes. There’s nothing worse than a never ending knock knock joke.Lori
Do all kids go through that nonsense-joke phase? I remember my brother and my cousin, around 4 or 5 when nothing was more HILARIOUS than… “Knock, knock. Who’s there? Mouse. Mouse who? Mouse can I climb up your tree?” And many, many other versions.
Ha. I love jokes like that.My niece’s favourite joke was, “Why did the girl dinosaur cross the road?”
A: “Because she was getting married to the boy dinosaur and she had to get her hair done, …and she had to get the flowers, ..and put her high heels on..and she had to put her dress on..and….put her make-up on ..and..take some pictures..and…”