I remember back in the day before Ben was talking normally, people’d always tell me “Once they start talking, they’ll talk back” and I remember thinking that that was the stupidest thing to tell someone whose child is verbally delayed. No shit, he’d talk back, but that sure beats the hell outta biweekly speech therapy.

Suddenly, I have blissfully begun to imagine a world in which LITTLE PEOPLE WERE QUIET in a way I’d never have imagined. I used to threaten Ben by telling him I’d sell him to the gypsies, of which he heard “chippies” and began to ASK to go to the chippies, because of course, that is junk food and junk food + Ben = heaven on earth. So I had to rethink what I was threatening him with.

Now I cannot seem to get the kid to shut his trap for more than 28 seconds at a time, because Lord knows his head might explode if he couldn’t narrate whatever the hell he was doing at a particular time. Half the time, it’s hilarious, but the other half drives me nuts because although I can completely ignore whatever is coming out of Dave’s mouth at any given time “blah, blah, blah, shut the cabinets after you’re done, Becky, blah, blah, blah,” I seem to be utterly unable to ignore Ben.

Not that he lets me ignore him for just a moment: “Mom, this juice is sour, grape juice is sour, Juicy Juice is 100% juice, grape juice is sour, yummy so yummy in my tummy, grape juice is sour AND yummy in my tummy tummy tummy, but I can’t drink it on the carpet because you know what will happen? MOM, do you know what will happen? MOOOOOOOOOOOOOM DO YOU KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF I DRINK THE JUICE ON THE CARPET? MOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!?!?!”

Until I finally have to answer him. And if I, by chance, am able to ignore him, he will continue monologuing (giving Dave a run for his monologing money) until I respond at increasingly louder intervals and my entire head of hair has turned completely grey.

But that isn’t what is driving me crazy lately, suprisingly. What’s driving me mad is that he will interject into any other conversation I may be having with someone else and try to join in. Whether or not he knows what he is talking about. This morning, I got a lecture on the amount of hashbrowns he was about to get from the drive thru which he didn’t understand yet because he hadn’t seen what I was talking about, which sounds less annoying on virtual paper than it was in real life. Let’s try again, so you can fully grasp what I am talking about:

Pretend you are having an intelligent conversation with a coworker about, say, particle physics (assuming, of course, that both of you know something about this), something of which I know absolutely nothing, and I walk up to you and start to tell you that the proper answer to what you are discussing is “obviously hot dog buns.” And when you inform me that I am wrong, and maybe I don’t know enough to be having this conversation with you, I begin to draw diagrams of why hot dog buns IS right and YOU are wrong.

Because six year olds know it all, even if they don’t.

So I’m going to revise my threat, I am going to see if the gypsies need a slightly chubby nurse to join them LIKE RIGHT NOW.