No noise

The last couple of days, maybe longer, I have been feeling like there is a little too much noise around me. It's noise I create, either the radio, or the visual noise of something like my cellphone. Just spending too much time immersed in it. I realize this is not a unique or new discovery on my part.

Today when the kids got home from school, reacting with joy to the Halloween doormat I'd put out, because it is NOT too early, I spent my time listening to and watching them. I gave them the Halloween window decorations I'd bought this morning, and watched them put them up in their rooms. "I'm making art this year," said Jack, as he carefully created a scene in his windows using the decorations. And he was, it was kind of cool.

With Kate, I had to move her radiator cover, help her stick the decorations on the window, move everything back into place. Her creations were more literal. "I'm going to make this cat about to eat this rat. And this bigger rat will be about to eat the cat. You know a baby rat is a mouse? Here's the owl on the roof of the house. And THIS big owl is its Mommy."

I walked Kate over to Daisy scouts at 5. We held hands, and she sang. I dropped her off, made sure she found a friend and a place to sit in the circle, waved goodbye.

I drove Jack to swim team tryouts in Rye. We always have the car radio on, but I left it off this time. We talked about baseball playoffs, school, recess, the upcoming comic convention. We had a few minutes to wait at the Rye Y, so we played foosball. He had his tryouts, and afterward said, "I think it was the best freestyle I've ever done. Sometimes I get tired, but I didn't get tired at all."

We drove home, again without the radio. Just chatting. He observes random things, the kind of stuff I do. Like: "That store....Arnold's Signs. It had this old wooden, dusty sign with a pole sticking out of the bottom. Like something in a Western movie or something. Couldn't a sign store have a nice, new sign?"

We picked up a pizza, and Jack said hi to the turtles. I told him the sign observation was funny, and he went off on it for another two minutes.

We got home and ate. Took a brief break from our no electronic devices to play a silly pinata game on Google.com. That was funny. Kids had showers, we read books, and went to bed.

Electronic devices are OK sometimes. Last night we danced in the kitchen to a couple of great songs, saw a funny music video with all different kinds of dancing.

But sometimes enough is enough. Turned off my phone a while ago, and now I'll turn off the computer and go look at the window decorations the kids put up. Right n