Journal Excerpt

This is where I become REALLY glad that we started early on all the habits we wanted her to have, like falling asleep on her own in the crib, taking the pacifier, sleeping through the night. Because she is capable now of a whole new level of crying. I have no idea how she turned from a poor little mewling thing into this screaming, flailing banshee. She can cry bloody murder, and I’ll run in there expecting some horrible tragedy and just discover it’s because her pacifier got lost and she wants it back.

So my advice to new parents: start them early. Early is good. It may seem like your heart is being wrenched from your chest when they’re sobbing because they can’t sleep on your chest every night, but better that than the flailing-banshee scream, or worse yet, the little toddler banging on your door.

The funny thing is, you can tell this is something she is experimenting with. Yesterday she reached a pitch that completely stopped me in my tracks, and then we both stared at each other in silence. She was looking at me like, wow, can I really go that high? And I was looking at her like, uh oh. Don’t you even THINK about doing that in public, buddy.

She’s discovering she has a voice and it can do things. She’s like Eliza Dolittle doing vocal exercises with the gramophone. She sounds mostly like a wounded bird. She hasn’t figured out yet how her tongue and lips play into the mix, though she can now purse her lips and spray her spit out, which entertains her to no end. I do it back at her. Thhhppt. It’s fun times around here. Civil, fun times.