Excuse me, there's a dinosaur in my soup

Over the past few days, a baby pterodactyl has moved into our house. She spends her days shadowing me, following close behind with her little, stompy, lilting gate, wings dragging behind her, shrieking her non-verbal demands. It’s not that she’s particularly upset- although the shrieks do get louder as her frustration level increases; it’s just that delightful stage of toddlerhood where they recognize that they can actually manipulate the world around them through verbal communication. Of course it has now backfired on her. On the first day, I would come running every time the shrieking started because I was sure she had somehow managed to climb her way onto the kitchen counter and cut off her own toes with a knife. Now, as she stands on a stool announcing herself and pronouncing whatever point she is trying to make over and over again, I just go about my day. When she feels like she has said enough, she gets down off the stool and follows me around again until some new thought occurs to her and the shrieking begins anew. If it weren’t for the sheer continual repetition of the noise, she is actually quite adorable as far as baby pterodactyls go.

She sounds a little like this.

Pickle had a very short pterodactyl phase if I remember correctly- maybe a couple of days. I don’t think that’s going to be the case with the Pepper.

Pickles and Peppers are not the same vegetable.

Pickle was a very laid-back, take in the world kind of kid. She was, and still is, extremely cautious about new situations. It takes her about twenty minutes to warm up to anything new at all – once she does, she heads into it full of confidence and understanding. And although you’d never know it now by the fact that her personal volume is set at eleven, she’s actually quite sensitive to noise and stimulation.

Pepper on the other hand is very, very busy. She is total kinetic energy. She moves and climbs and dances and flops and falls and runs and twirls through her day. She acts first then thinks about her plan if it doesn’t work. She is the physical manifestation of impulse. Pepper thrives on activity and noise.

The real issue, besides the non-stop splitting headache, is that it makes any contact with the outside world a little shaky. People at the grocery store come whipping around the corner into my aisle, relieved to see that I am not actually repeatedly running over my daughter with my grocery cart. And I can tell the moms who’ve been there. When they see me, they have the telltale “I’ve been there. Boy am I glad that phase is over” smile on their faces. And of course, it’s virtually impossible to make any sort of phone calls. No one quite believes me when they hear her and I explain that she isn’t in distress. To be fair, it does sound as if a snapping turtle has her by the leg as she is trying to take flight. But really, there’s nothing wrong. She’s just testing and enjoying the power of her own voice- and as much as I can stand it, I’m inclined to let her figure out that her voice is a powerful tool. She’ll need to know that later on in life. So if I owe you a phone call, remember, it’s not you, it’s me.