The loudest child on the planet

Zoe is loud. Not just a little loud, either. She is incredibly, amazingly, deafeningly loud.

Tonight, Scott and I needed to run to Lowes to get some stuff for the bathroom. Quinn was asleep, it was almost Zoe's bedtime, everyone had eaten, and things seemed reasonably calm. So we decided to let Zaven and Caly babysit while we ran our errand. And this is what happened.

Zoe got loud. Loud enough that they told her if she was going to scream that loud she'd have to do it on the porch. Now this is pretty much the rule in our house. Yell if you want, but do it on the porch. We're an eighth of a mile from our closest neighbor so it's not that big of a deal. So she went on the porch and yelled and hollered and screamed. Then one of the neighbors in the subdivision an eighth of a mile away yelled back. So she yelled. So he yelled. Back and forth.

Then she yelled one time and he didn't yell back.
So she yelled, "CAN YOU HEAR ME?"
...and he yelled, "NO!"
Then she yelled, "CAN YOU HEAR ME?"
...and he yelled, "NOT QUITE!"

By the time we'd got home all the kids except Quinn had conversed with him and they'd made plans to do it again tomorrow night. I, however, am going back to Lowes to see if they've got a cone of silence.