Shhhhhhh!  

I came down the stairs this morning to find the closet door, three cupboard doors, the bathroom door and the dishwasher door wide open.

No, we hadn't been robbed - everything was still where it had been the night before... including the dishes from my husband's late night snack (who apparently doesn't believe that all calories consumed after 10pm go straight to your inner thighs).

My husband gets up every morning at 4:30. On good days, he eats breakfast, gets dressed and heads to the gym to hit the treadmill before work. On bad days, he falls back to sleep on the couch, only to wake up at 6:45am to the sounds of me screaming that he's going to be late.

It's no secret that I think my husband is the loudest person in the world. Whenever he talks on the phone, he basically shouts into the handset. Even if his family didn't live a thousand miles away, I'm pretty sure they'd be able to hear him - without the phone.

Having a private conversation with the man is impossible, especially in crowded locations (the types of locations that are ideal for "people watching"). He simply doesn't know how to whisper.

And you can forget the idea of him sneaking up on anybody. He blames his flat feet for his inability to walk quietly, as every footfall causes the floorboards of our not-very-old house to creak.

But my husband has over-estimated the noise factor involved with just about every one of his morning tasks. He's convinced that closing a door makes enough noise to wake up the kids... so he doesn't close them. He's convinced running the sink to rinse out his breakfast dishes is so noisy that it'll make our dog start barking... so he leaves them in the sink for me to take care of. He's convinced that putting his electric razor back in the medicine cabinet will disturb me... so it remains on the bathroom counter.

While I appreciate the steps to take to ensure that the kids and I can continue sleeping long after he's gone, I don't appreciate having to spend the first five to ten minutes of my day cleaning up after him. It's at times like these when I do, indeed, feel like his mother instead of his wife.

The fact of the matter is, he has no concept of what makes noise and what doesn't. Closing doors? Cleaning dishes? Putting his razor away? They don't really make a lot of noise. Grinding up beans for his morning cup of coffee? Pressing the snooze button on his alarm twice? Forgetting to turn off the security alarm before walking out the door? These are the real sources of noise pollution in our house every morning!