Riding in the car

I love my kids, I really really do, but riding in the car with them before I've had a chance to defrag from my day at work is enough to make me want to drive off the road, or at the very least turn the radio way up (sometimes this works, usually they just yell over it).
I totally understand their desire to have my attention after not seeing me all day, but it becomes almost a competition to them. Emily will say "mom" I say "what?" she tells me what she needs to tell me and I respond...right away I get another "mom" from Damien. Occasionally Cali will even pipe in with her own "mama, mama, mama" and it will go on like this untill my attention span is depleted.
I finally snapped at Damien yesterday because everytime he wants to ask me something, or tell me something he says "mom" and waits for me to say "what". If for some reason he can't hear me, or he's distracted by his own thoughts, it might go something like this:

"mom"
"what"
few seconds pass
"mom"
"WHAT?"
"I just wanted to ask you something"
(waiting, waiting)

"WELL FREAKIN ASK ME ALREADY, GEEZ I'M TRYING TO DRIVE HERE!!"

So yesterday I told him if he wants to say something to me, just say it, he doesn't have to wait for me to say "What"

It worked O-K. It went something like this:

"mom?"
.......
"mom?"
.......
"mom?"

(I'm biting my tongue and my ears are starting to steam)

"(he finally says what he wanted to say)"

Phew.

Mostly what he wants to talk about in the car is his pet wish list. We can't have pets where we live right now. The kids also aren't allowed to play outside in our complex anymore, so I keep telling them we'll move soon, so they can have a less stifled childhood. In Damien's mind, this means pets....and lots of them.
Every day he has new ideas as to what he wants. It started out innocently enough...a kitten? a turtle maybe?

It's started to get a tad strange though, here's a partial list of the animals my 6 year old would like to own:

-a salamander
-a porcupine
-an eel
-a seagull
-a baby elephant
-a monkey
-a cheetah
-a diamondback rattlesnake
-a tarantula

and this morning it was a baby shark.
I told him he should just buy a zoo. To which he replied "duh mom, I'm not a grown up yet"

Touche little boy.