Thursday, January 13, 2011

Where is the Volume Switch?

My ears are ringing. The house is vibrating with the tremors caused by three pairs of feets that are jumping, bouncing and overall behaving in a tiggerish way. There are shrieks and giggles. Laughter and complaints. It sounds like elephants are pounding their way around the house over my head. What is really fascinating is that this is their version of keeping the volume down.

In the van on the way home from school, there was gobblygook speak coming from the mouths that were formerly children. They are now singers, fairies, fairleys and other things. Human doesn't seem to be one of them. They couldn't even hear me when I asked them to be quiet. Sigh. I wonder if the sound of their own voices is damaging to their hearing when they are that loud.

I have the weather channel on currently so that I could see if it was possible to go tobogganing some time soon. I can't hear the weather person, although I can see the lips moving. I can at least see the forecast. I have also turned on the closed captioning for the hearing impaired. I definately fit that bill at the moment. I can can them from two floors away. I can hear them when I shiver and freeze my way to the van to pick up the bag that I forgot. I can hear them - just not the phone ringing, the radio playing, the TV, the kettle popping, or anything else.

How do they do it? How is it that little people can escalate in volume and not notice? How do their teachers cope with the volume levels? Fascinating. And does it damage their hearing? I would be interested to know. These are the happy sounds, excited sounds and imaginations running free. "Lets pretend..."

In the meantime. If you want to talk to me - I can't hear you or anyone else. The children are in the house and they are making sure I pay attention to them. You might have to resort to texting me an email. At least they can't hear me chuckling away . . . they are too loud.

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