The Phone Is For You!

What is the deal with kids and their love for talking on the phone? And even more, what is the deal with kids and their sudden need for Mom's undivided attention when someone calls and the call isn't for them? And one step further, why do kids seem to think that the second Mom answers the phone, it is time to attack their sister/stick their hand in the toilet/scale the kitchen counters trying to reach the cookie box/remove the pictures from the wall/rip the covers off all the children's books/sneak Mommy's colored pencils and chew all the lead out?

Or is that just my kids? Somehow, I don't think so.

My fellow Mama Dramaloguer, Holly, is determined to believe that I sugar-coat my blog posts about my life with kids. The reason: While I definitely have lots of posts about temper tantrums, black eyes and terrible manners, more often than not, I feature my girls in all their adorableness... yet whenever Holly calls, she gets nothing but a blast of screaming kids with bad behavior as I run all over the house trying to find one place where she wont have to listen to screaming, crying children in the background.

Truthfully, I feel sorry for anyone who calls us at the Hopkins household. My husband Will and I aren't particularly nice to our friends and family. As soon as someone asks to talk to the girls, they are subjected to listening to Gracie and Annelie babble on about anything from Barbie to Barney (and only about 35% of it even makes sense) for about a half hour each, despite the fact that Will and I can hear whoever it is saying, "Give Mommy the phone, please. Please, please, please give Mommy the phone," -- to which Gracie completely ignores as she replies, "Yeah, uh huh, okay, that's right," while balancing the phone between her ear and her shoulder, as she pretends to be me; and to which Annelie only just shouts 'No!' and then keeps right on babbling.

As I said, Will and I aren't particularly nice, but we both find it funny, so we let the girls carry on. We find it especially funny when Gracie decides to show the person on the phone her pictures, or workbooks, by holding the phone over them saying, "See? Do you like my picture?" That can last a good ten minutes. Its a good thing we have a cheap long distance plan, as it is usually Will's family in England, or my mom in Austin, who are stuck on the other end of the phone.

This past winter, when Gracie was visiting my mom for a few days, I let Annelie call Gracie every day. The girls have never been happier. For 20 minutes at a time, they sat there giggling across the phone to each other. Annelie finally had someone on the phone who laughed when she shouted, "BLAH!" and Gracie finally had someone on the phone who laughed when she shouted, "UNDERPANTS!" It was great.

Anyway, the moral of this post is this: My kids are monsters when the phone rings. And as for you, Holly, please don't tell me I've sugar-coated this post. Because if you do, I might just hand the phone off to Gracie and Annelie next time you call!

Enjoy!

*cross-posted from my regular blog