Sonic Youth of my Loins II: With a Chorus

When Toddler Mojo was just crawling I wrote a post that tried to explain the noises coming from him.  Now that More Mojo has joined the family the noises are akin to those from two years ago, but in stereo.

The ear piercing scream that a toddler emits is like nothing else you’ll ever hear.

For those without children the closest comparison is hot peppers.  Pepperencini is a toddler talking or crying.  It’s sometimes pleasant, a little bit too much for a moment, but it quickly goes away.  When your toddler screams it’s a devil pepper from the Sri Lankan mountains, grown by angry Monks who are enacting revenge for the sins of man or the annoyance of Kanye West.

A toddler will scream for lots of reasons, all of them are valid and one can only hope that the toddler is pointing away from you.

As mentioned previously, when your toddler is screaming at the dinner table (presumably you’re feeding them) you’re out of luck.  All you can do is gird your loins and squint your eyes.

The other thing we’re discovered about having a toddler and a little kid is that the older one will imitate the younger one, especially if you make an unpleasant face.  Never let them see you sweat comes to mind, but sometimes the scream from your toddler is so painful you can’t help but grimace.

Thankfully the scream from a toddler is so bothersome that even a little kid, 3 years old finds it annoying.  Fortunately the vocal chords of a little kid aren’t able to shrill as high or as long as the toddler.  They’ll give up after a moment and then give a look at the toddler to knock it off.

If only we parents could time exactly when our toddlers would emit these sonic, pain inducing shrills.  I’d put our toddler in a seat that would be in the metal helmet that I’d have on my head.  He’d sit up there like Master Blaster in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.  Whenever Barter Town, (or the lines at Costco) got too long or irritating he’d wake up from his nap, I’d dangle some goldfish in front of his mouth and he’d scream.

Alternately I’d strap him to my chest and his scream would enable us to fly like Banshee from the X-Men.  Unfortunately, the lung capacity of a 13 month old is very limited and as painful as his screams are, they wouldn’t be strong enough to propel us over any distances.

In the near future our toddler will be mature enough to scream at human levels, instead of those akin to screech owls fed a steady diet of steroids.  Until then we think of superhero parents with the ability to block out hearing.  It’s been told that teenagers have that ability; we’ll channel one of them to see if that works.