Noises

The more I talk to other people with babies, the more I get the sense that E is really a pretty loud person. You mean it’s not normal to not need a baby monitor because you can hear her cry in every room of the house? Oh. My mom used to remark on how “resonant” her cries were. And the nurses in the hospital on what a “healthy” pair of lungs she had. Ha.

Sometimes she’ll start to yell AAAH—AAAH—AAAH continuously, usually because she’s bored. I’ll be switching her to different positions in my arms, trying to distract her with things, but she just keeps going. She’s not upset, or crying, or squirming, just sort of yelling. It’s like I’m holding a little car alarm. People start to look over and I’m tempted to leave her there and pretend I don’t know her.

She’s good at letting us know in the mornings she’s awake. She’ll go sequentially through all the sounds she knows how to make, which put together means GET OFF YOUR BUTT AND COME GET ME NOW.

She likes to copy other people’s sounds. When other people cough, she makes little fake coughing sounds back. If I say “mmm, that was yummy” she’ll go “mmmmmm” back. She likes to mutter to herself, with lots of “sh” “ppuh” “pht” sounds, when reading a book on her own. She’s starting to copy our words: “up” is “UHH.” Bubble is “buh-boh.” Banana is “aah-na-na.” Apple is “ah-puuh.”