Chatterbox

Man, have my mother's wishes came true! Growing up, my mom always told me that, when I was little, I talked ALL the time. She has told me the same story, numerous times over the years, how I sat in the backseat and talked the entire trip from Nebraska to Texas one summer. She always said, "Someday, when you have kids, I hope they talk ALL the time, like you did."

Well, her wish has certainly been granted. I used to think she was exaggerating on the talking "all the way to Texas" story because how could one child talk for 12 hours straight? I can officially say it is quite possible that a child can talk for 12 hours straight, maybe even 14 hours if given the opportunity, and my 6-year-old daughter can prove it.

That little girl can talk 'til she drops ... literally. She'll wake up talking and continue until after bedtime. Even after we say prayers and kiss her goodnight, we can't leave the room without her fitting in another paragraph or two of some random topic.

Like a routine, every night we walk out of her room, shut the light off and loudly say our 5th "goodnight" while she is still talking. You'd think by the end of the day her little brain would be shutting down and her vocal cords sore from so much chatter but nope, just like the Energizer Bunny, her lips just keep moving.

Unlike the rest of our family, who need a few minutes of silence in the morning to allow ourselves to wake up, maybe some food or coffee, my youngest girl can sit down at the table with me at 6:45 a.m. and rattle off her entire night's dreams, what happened on the playground with her friends yesterday, and then describe every little cute movement the pet hamster is doing. All I care about that early in the morning is consuming some energy, not burning it. How does she do it?

The rest of the day is no different. She'll talk all the way to school, mentioning random things she sees outside, what her teacher wants her to do that day and rattling on about any other arbitrary topic that comes to her mind. Almost daily I have to ask her to shush a second so I can tell her sisters goodbye when I pull up to their school. There are two other girls in my truck every morning but you'd never know it. There's just that one little passenger section that sits directly behind me, where all the sound in the vehicle resonates.

Although it's a cute little kid sound that, with some funny word interpretations now and then, the sound is so constant that the words eventually blend all together and no one in our family actually knows what she's rambling on about. On a long family trip, she can talk for an hour straight, as long as I insert an "Oh really?" or "Yep, you're right," response every few minutes. We do this around the house too. She follows me around while I do housework, just a yappin' away about everything from what the characters on her TV show said to how the dogs lapped up her popsicle while she wasn't looking, etc, etc.

I mostly chalk up her constant chatting to the fact that she's the third kid and is competing for attention. Plus, I think she desperately wants to feel like a big kid, like her sisters, so if they tell a story, she tries to one-up them with her story. However, deep down, I know her gift of gab is a positive trait. She's an outgoing bird and could have a pretty good conversation with about anyone she meets. And someday, when she's a teenager with her own life, I'm sure I'll beg for her to talk to me like she used to. So for now, I'll let her yap and enjoy my little chatterbox.