I hesitate to share this with you - it is, after all, quite powerful. But I'm a generous person at times and this really does work wonders. The number 1 way to silence a car/room/house that was just mere seconds earlier brimming with calamity is....have a complete breakdown in front of your kids. And then sob. Silence.
It can't be just any old type of breakdown, though. It has to be the kind that builds, grows, festers, over days and weeks and months. It has to be accompanied by sore back and weight gain and sleepless nights; by surging hormones and by hundreds and hundreds of papers to grade. It emanates from a deep source of sheer exhaustion and stress.
And then, on top of that all, the following events need to transpire - not necessarily in the same order: You need to completely tear apart your home in the midst of a very busy weekend full of halloween costume making, exam correcting, and composition grading, because your place must look and feel better when your new baby comes in 7 weeks.
You need to scramble to finish the final details of your kids' costumes so you can push them out the door in time for this very important of days at school.
Your youngest needs to soak her (basically un-washable) halloween costume with urine before the school day is over and have nothing to wear for trick-or-treating.
Your oldest needs to be named the newest victim in the lice outbreak at school and GET SENT HOME just HOURS before the big parade and halloween party she has been looking forward to for weeks. You need to cry on the phone, on campus, in the middle of hundreds of undergraduate students, and tell the school intern/receptionist that this is a cruel and awful way to ostracize your child and please OH PLEASE couldn't she just stay one more hour for the party?
Your husband needs to lose a day of work so he can race to the rescue, grab her, treat her with nasty shampoo, and return her to the school just in time to participate.
You need to lose a whole day and $500.00 to go to the lice professionals to ensure that NO ONE in the family has even one nit left in their hair and then start to freak out about sending your kids BACK to the school where they got lice because you definitely don't have another $500 you want to spend on parasites.
You need to visit your midwife and be told that your iron levels are plummeting dramatically and that you are probably breathless and exhausted due to this and must start iron therapy. And then learn that you gained 3 pounds in 2 weeks.
You need to go home and wash every bedding article on all beds, all towels, all stuffed animals, and then change them and wash them daily for the next week or so.
You need to stay up well past midnight grading (late) compositions, counting on that one glorious hour you have between your four classes the next day. That one glorious hour where you can grade at least 6 more compositions. And then you need to open your email to learn that you have to sub for a TA the next day, during that glorious hour. Which means no eating, sitting, grading, resting at any point the following day.
You need to get up at 5 am to finish the compositions. Rush out the door without breakfast or a wallet. Almost run out of gas, pull into the gas station, discover missing wallet. Return home, (it's important that you start sobbing uncontrollably in front of your kids at this point) get your wallet, get gas, and get to your daughter's school - whose door is locked because school has started and you're just standing out on the street wondering what in the hell to do when a passing parent sees you and calls the school for you so they let you in.
You need to rush to class with an ill-prepared, boring lesson plan, and repeat it 5 times in a row. And then it's important that your Friday babysitter text you to tell you she has to cancel.
And most importantly, you need to get home, stumble into the kitchen, and completely break down in front of your girls, who are in the midst of a vicious battle over gummy bears; who then smother you with kisses and hugs and sweet sayings for a few minutes.
And then go off in a different room to fight about Halloween candy.
I'm telling you, it's magic.
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