Loud Little

I hate the monkey, Mama!

If there is one word you can undoubtedly use to describe Little, it's "loud." I like to say that she's particular. I'm sure if we didn't have fire (read: very, very thick) walls, our neighbors would have other words for it.

For the first 23 hours after birth, she was the perfect, sweet baby.  Then came the hearing test. It took almost two hours to pass her left ear, not because of any hearing problems, but because she decided she hated the electrodes (I don't blame her, really. They would probably annoy me too, and I've been ex utero a lot longer than 23 hours.) and screamed every.single.time. the poor technician got them attached correctly. Nursing didn't work. Sleeping didn't work. Daddy holding her didn't work. Finally, we made it work laying very, very still on Mama's chest -- I don't think I breathed for the full however many minutes and several restarts it took to finally pass the darn test and get discharged from the hospital.

That should have been our warning. The first at-home scream fest happened that night amid an Arizona monsoon thunderstorm. 1.30 in the morning, lightening flashing, thunder clapping, rain pattering on the skylights, baby screaming, and this first-time mama wondering what she got herself into.

Recently, the screaming has subsided some. Now, it's probably similar to normal babies, instead of crazy semi-colicky babies. However, now, she's talking. Not just sweet coos or gahs, but mile-a-minute babbling, seemingly all the time. (Yeah, yeah, I know it's not actually special. But it's special to me, darn it.) Her newest trick is a loud, fire-engine pitched "eeeeeeeh" originating from the back of her throat. It sounds like a "Mama, get here now!!1!" scream, but when I walk in to save her, she grins. "Isn't my new sound the bestest, Mama?!?" (Tween punctuation hers. Yes, she's very advanced.)

The geek part of me excited over the language development! Such a great thing! The sleep deprived part of me wishes she would choose: asleep or awake. And if you're awake, do me a favor and scream so that I can get up and take care of you, instead of listening to you talk to who knows what your Guardian Angel.

At least I know her lungs are healthy.