Just e-mail me.

Have I not returned your phone call? Or have our phone calls been abruptly cut short? Does it seem like every time you call, you get my voice mail? Please accept my apologies.

You see, it is almost impossible for me to have a decent conversation on the phone these days. Just this weekend, as I tried to talk to my best friend (who lives 1000 miles away), I was not on the phone for 1 minute before a screaming Max was handed to me (he was rightfully upset because his daddy had just brought him outside onto his swing set for the first time in months, and within a couple minutes had to force him back inside because he was called to the hospital for an emergency). Also, I tried to take a moment to call my sister, and within 30 seconds I had Max grabbing at the phone. He’d mumble a few sounds, then hand it back to me for 2 seconds, then pull it back to his own ear, then start punching the numbers, then hand it back to me, then pull it away to hear who’s on the other end…repeat…repeat….repeat. The conversation ends there with me apologizing and telling the person on the other line that I’ll have to call them back. Now this promise is often broken, because often the person is calling from a different time zone, and when 9 PM rolls around, and if Ella is cooperating and I have a moment to myself to call someone, it is 10PM their time, and too late for a phone call.

A few times I have managed to sneak in a phone call. If the kids are busy in the kitchen or in the family room, I’ll try to quietly converse with someone in the living room or in the piano room. But after the uninterrupted conversation finally ends, I almost always have a surprise waiting for me. One time Max emptied out the entire bottom two shelves of my pantry, bringing all the food into the family room. Another time he dumped a whole bag of cheerios all over the kitchen floor. And yet another time, he had found some glue in Cameron’s art box, squeezed it onto the kitchen table and took a paintbrush to rub it all around.

Please understand…if I don’t call you right away, it’s nothing personal.