Oh my goodness, I never thought Geri Halliwell would be referring to my rather vocal five-month-old son, when I heard her song all those years ago. Apparently, well according to my extensive Google searches at least, screeching, at a frequency that only bats & dogs should be able to hear, indicates that he could be an early talker. Oh good. This wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest; both his Daddy & I love to chat, so I’m fully expecting his first utterance to be a sentence, something along the lines of “Mumma, I would like my mashed avocado alfresco today!” The boy isn’t very physical, but he more than makes up for this in ‘chatting’ to his toys (can’t think where he gets that from?!) I often walk back into the lounge to find him getting cross with Matchstick Monkey because it refuses to talk back to him. I feel his pain. Anyway, the screeching has been getting progressively louder as the days have gone on; we’ve almost done a full week now. He wakes up at 5:45 each morning on the dot, happy & smiling: lulling us into a false sense of security that he may have forgotten his falsetto overnight. I swear he waits until he is the closest he can possibly be to my ear before he lets rip. He’s not in distress or pain: just trying to tell us that it’s a new day & he’s ready for his breakfast, or that he wants to change activity, or because he’s rediscovered the cat for the fifth time, or the day has a ‘y’ in it. We’ve tried a few techniques to try to stop this becoming a habit: ignoring it, using a firm tone, saying “no thank you to that noise Benjamin!” & over praising him when he ‘talks nicely’. None seem to have the desired effect for very long. So yesterday, a wet, misty & cold Tuesday afternoon, I decided to throw caution to the wind & thought we’d venture to “Under Fives Rhyme Time” at our local LIBRARY. What could possibly go wrong: screaming baby with studious people trying to read or research, no problem! Well actually nothing did go wrong really & thankfully we weren’t asked to leave by a strict librarian. In fact, Benjamin was more engaged & alert than he is during some of the paid classes I take him to each week. Typical. I’d mentally prepared myself & with a full face of make up (just for extra an confidence boost) I went into battle. I hate this sort of ‘Mummy Meet’ thing & try to avoid them at all costs. It is literally like the first day of school all over again, but this time with an excitable baby who could shatter glass at any given moment in tow. We were quickly introduced to another Mummy, who had apparently done her first week last Tuesday & as she hadn’t made the established clique yet, the librarian concluded that we had common ground & my best match. My Step Children would call us ‘noobs’ & they would be right. Anyway, I’m not sure whether it was the battered laminated song sheets, the baby next to us repeatedly vomiting, the rusty hand bells, or just the huge psychedelic Ouija board-esque rug that we were all sat around that completely entranced Benjamin. But whatever it was I’m grateful to it, he’s barely felt the need to scream since, however today he’s started to move his mouth; in a similar style to that of a frantic goldfish (with no sound at all) as if he’s now trying to get us to lip-read instead. It’s literally gone from one extreme to another! Oh well, back to Google I go…
thegeriatricmumma.com 