Silence: a lost art

Our house is never quiet. Not only is Toby a loquacious child, he has also recently discovered that making a variety of alien like sounds intermingled with moronic laughter brings a smile to Mia’s face. He does it NON STOP. Sometimes I feel as though I am a broken record reciting the phrase, “Not so loud, Toby” and “That’s enough” over and over and over again.

I have TRIED to explain to him that Mia loves him and would find him funny EVEN IF he did away with his cacophonous sounds; I bet she would still flash her adoring smile his way if his volume was only half maximum and he didn’t add grotesque facial expressions to his already disturbing jingles.

This suggestion is usually met with a roll of the eyes and an exasperated sigh, and then another loud eruption of vocal diarrhea. (Followed by a predictably obedient fit of laughter by the ever-obliging Mia.)

It’s a vicious circle. Until last week, however, when we kindly left Toby with his Grandparents for some “bonding time”.

For the first time in eons, I woke up to the lone squeals of a 6 month old.

I brushed my teeth to her soft cooing.

I sipped coffee while she spat her breakfast at me – quietly.

I rocked her to sleep with only the sounds of her mouth sucking the bottle and the squeak of the rocking chair in the background.

During nap-time I checked email and cleaned the house. In silence.

Soon enough I heard the first little peeps of a 6 month old waking up and excitedly greeted my darling daughter.

I was met with a scowl.

I picked her up and changed her bum, then got out her favourite toys and laid them all down in front of her before plopping myself down on the carpet to enjoy a little one on one time with my her.

She was not amused.

Ten minutes later we were BOTH bored and slightly unsure of what to do with one another. The silence in the house was deafening.

I racked my brains trying to think of something I could do to bring a smile out of my usually cheerful daughter. After a number of unsuccessful attempts, the solution became obvious.

I glanced around to ensure that no one was looking before I put my fingers in either side of my mouth, scowled at her, bulged my eyes and puffed out my cheeks and then, as loudly as I could, shrieked with laughter while clicking my tongue against my teeth.

True to form, Mia smiled.

The "Open mouth insert...anything" stage

Time for another update on the development of my “Little” 7 month old. Mia is an incredibly sweet, LARGE (with a capital L and triple chins) little girl. She continues to develop and explore the world and has started reaching milestones and developing skills before our eyes, which makes the whole process so rewarding.

Currently, Mia’s stage is the ever so passionate “open mouth insert…anything” stage: the stage in which some part of her developing brain is coaching her along saying, “Get that! Put it in your mouth! Now that! Taste it! Put it in your mouth! See that thing? Put it in your mouth!” She takes these instructions VERY seriously and is quite adept at not only reaching things, but also at accurately smashing them into her mouth. Or the side of her cheek.

She is not at ALL discerning. If it exists, it’s good enough to taste. As far as I can tell she has NO ability whatsoever to discriminate between a CLEAN finger and a NOT so clean finger. Coinciding with Toby’s current independent streak and concomitant weakness at hand washing pretty much ensures that Mia has already had a taste of peanut butter and many other things.

I was watching her in the bath tonight and was baffled by her persistence. As the bath toys floated by sat there flailing both arms about, clenching and unclenching her fists in a fit of excitement while her gaping mouth DROOLED in anticipation of all the THINGS that she could POSSIBLY put in her mouth. Bath toys being small and all, she ended up settling for the soapy-bath-water-filled-facecloth that was much easier to get her hands on. As she contentedly sucked the bath water out of it, I contemplated to myself how LUCKY we are to outgrow this little stage.

Apparently Mia Doesn't Like Squash

WARNING : This video is not for the faint of heart.

Adult Converstions

This morning at breakfast, Toby and I found ourselves eating the exact same cereal with the exact same berries in it. This was VERY exciting to Toby and in all of his excitement he exclaimed, “Mommy! Lets eat breakfast together and talk like you and daddy talk when you eat supper together!”

I was immediately intrigued and agreed to this breakfast game without hesitation. I started the game off with anticipatory silence, waiting to hear what my 3 year old thinks is appropriate “adult talk” during mealtime.

Toby started off with a dramatic topic of conversation. Complete with arm gestures and an exasperated look on his face he opened with a sudden proclamation; “There are SO MANY FLIES in here! Oh my GOODNESS!”

I concurred and took another bite of cheerios.

He then changed his tone a little as he tried to start up the next topic of conversation with, “Did you hear about Rwanda? She is sick. Very, very sick.” And he sadly shook his head, lamenting “Rwanda”’s ill state of health.

I stifled a laugh at this one (not just for the fact that the invented name RWANDA was rather clever) and was then invited to engage in a game of “You say yes, I’ll say no”

This carried on for a few rounds before Toby laughed and said, “I won!”

Tragically, our game was interrupted by the sudden realization that the berries in his cereal had all disappeared.

“Guess where they WENT?” he asked excitedly

“In your mouth?” I stated the obvious,

“Nope..." (wait for it) "...In my EYEBALL!”

I’ll give him the fact that Rob and I sometimes comment on the flies and, being a palliative care doctor, I suspect a lot of conversation DOES involve sick people, (sometimes VERY sick people, said with a shake of the head and downwards gaze of the eyes) and perhaps we do have a lot of back and forth yes vs. no, but Rob has NEVER in all the time I’ve been with him, digested his food in his eyeballs. It was an interesting look into the world of conversation from a 3 year olds perspective while it lasted. And now back to talking about eyeballs.