Do you hear what I hear?

Our house?

Is a very very very loud house.

Take one pre-teen girl combined with a 6 year old with a voice box set on 11 and a deranged 4 year old. Then throw in me, with the game on at about volume 30 just to hear the stinking thing plus the fact I'm usually hollering "Get Out, Ball!" every time the ball leaves the bat and poor Ang trying to get a word in edgewise and you could land the Met Life blimp in our back yard and none of us would hear a thing.

So tonight, in the latest in a series of lame ideas that Ang and I come up with to reduce the chaos level, even just a bit, we had Ciera in her room, Trot in ours watching tv, and Rakes in his room practicing his reading.

All was quiet and serene. For about 3 minutes; then, seemingly at once, Ciera came out of her room to discuss whether Caroline Keane (who wrote the Nancy Drew books) was still alive. This was followed by Trot, who had somehow hid a Batman and a motorcycle in his pajama shorts, LOUDLY having a fight to the death with The Joker, while Rakes totally destroyed my office with toys while singing "Fiddly Dee". Not just singing it; he sounded like Snoop rapping "Gin and Juice" only if Snoop was 6 and was missing a front tooth.

It was surreal. And all I could do was just chuckle under my breath and think about how much I loved my kids.

Then I turned the tv up a few levels more so I could hear the game.

Let's just say I've learned when to pick my battles.

This?

Wasn't one of those times.