The Phone

A public service announcement:

If you call our house and we don't answer the phone, please do not be offended! I can tell sometimes people are angry or bothered by the fact that they can't reach us. I understand this. We're used to instant communication-phones, cell phones, email, fax, pagers.....this is the age where you can be reached no matter where you go!

But, just because I am home with the kids does not mean that I am always home with the kids! We do go for walks, run errands, and go to doctor's appts. Sometimes Tom comes home early or doesn't have work and we go do things with him! It happens. Try not to call during Gilmore Girls (Tuesday nights, 8-9). People have a habbit of doing that. It makes for a distracted conversation.
Sometimes I just plain can't find the phone. That happens pretty frequently, actually. I may be in the bathroom(it's a trek, with all 4 of us going there and back and getting settled for whatever the duration may be), or changing a really messy diaper, or on another floor where I can't get to the phone in time. Sometimes I just plain don't feel like talking to anyone-it may just be a rough day with the kids and I'm just too annoyed to make small talk. Aside from a breif period during the teen years, I really don't enjoy being on the phone. Especially while the kids are young. They know you're distracted and it motivates them to become the world's smallest and noisiest music band ever!
Or I may just be holding or rocking or nursing one or two children to sleep. I will not get up to answer the phone with a sleeping child on my lap. If that is the case, I don't care if Jesus himself is tapdancing a morse code on my head unstructing me to answer the phone-I ain't movin! If they fall asleep that's my only chance to do anything!!

So please please never take it personally if I do not answer your call! And always call twice as sometimes it just takes us that long to find the phone. That is all.