The great comedian Dennis Leary once said it best: “When you become a parent it all becomes about the quiet. The peace and quiet that you once knew, kiss it goodbye and don’t think about it again; you signed onto 18 years of crashing and banging and NOISE!”

I can vouch on this one. My house is rarely EVER quiet - even in the middle of the night - since my son sporadically gets up and turns on his mobile so at 2 AM there’s a good chance that my husband and I are listening to Beethoven play over the baby monitor.

I can honestly say it’s by no means peaceful, nor would it ever lull an adult to sleep.

You would think after years of abusing my ears by listening to music in my car so loud that the exterior would vibrate and that going to concerts where your head banged only to keep the blood flowing that I would be used to the loud sounds that come from having a child roommate. However, I believe somewhere between pregnancy and birth my hearing became more sensitive to the point where my son banging on pots and pans with a wooden spoon can make my brain bleed.

The biggest culprits in the noise pollution are kid’s toys. I think they’re purposely created to make the most obnoxious and annoying noises possible so that the sound of your child crying is like a lullaby. I just bought my son a Baby Bruin Microphone that lights up and makes four different sounds: one being a beat of a drum, the other of symbols clashing, accompanied by two of the worst songs that I have ever heard. I think the sounds of torture would be more pleasing to the ears than the noise that comes from this thing.

Of course my child isn’t a quiet soul himself; I don’t think he’s capable of quietly crossing from one room into another without making himself known. If he’s not running around screaming “no mine” for no particular reason he’s banging, yelling, growling, or creating a noise that I can only assume a pterodactyl used to make.

I know that pretty much every parent out there is nodding their head agreeing and knows what it's like, but with every parent going through this do we yet have a solution for noise control? No, and I’ll tell you why… we will still buy the toys that make the noise, leave the television playing in the background hope it’ll get a moment's attention, and we will continue to take out the pots and pans for our children to beat on because at that second that they’re busy the only thing that we care about it “as long as they're happy.”

Photo: Contributed

Nicolette Fuller has lived in Kelowna pretty much her entire life. Always one who wanted to settle down and get married and have children, she's worked in childcare for most of her career but it wasn’t until she had her own that she realized how quirky life can be with a toddler.