Keeping up the chatter

When you have a baby, you dream about that magic moment when they start talking. Every mum hopes that 'Mama! will be the first utterance out of their little mouths.

Then they start talking. And talking. And talking. And talking. And never shut the hell up. And you think: "If I hear 'MUM!' one more time I may just scream."

My Lil-lil loves to talk. She loves to talk loudly. In fact, she loves to do everything loudly. Sing. Stomp. She even skips loudly. When we're out I never lose her cause I can always hear her. I can often hear her from blocks away. The three days she's at preschool and it's just me and little Goose, it's just so quiet and peaceful. We can even hear the thundering planes on the flight path as  they aren't drowned out by Lil-lil's chatter. Don't get me wrong, I love her joie de vivre, but sometimes it gets, well, a little much.

She's driving me completely bonkers at the moment because before she tells me anything she has to say 'Mum' at least five times before getting to the point. A conversation goes something like this:

"Mum!", "Yes?", "Ah Mum!" "Yes?", "Mum, I need to tell you something, Mum.", " What is it?", "Um Mum!", "WHAT IS IT????", "Mum, can I have chips for dinner?", "No."

We can have seven or eight of these conversations as I'm trying to escape her room at bedtime. So I can hear 'mum' 40 odd times in just a few minutes. After about eight of these convos it usually ends up like this as I'm walking out of the room:
"Mum!", "Good night!", "Mum!", "Sleep time now!", "But Mum, I need to tell you something.", "Go to sleep!", "Mum!", "Shush!" "Muuuuum", "I've gone now."

I know this stage will pass, but until then I might invest in some ear plugs.