Even as I write, Tess is trying out her new preferred mode of communication: a scream that is perfect pitch and so high and so sustained you would not think it possible to come from a human. When she does it, you can see it coming a mile away. Her eyes sparkle, she pulls herself up tall and becomes still. Her smile gapes open and out it comes.
At first, the boys were her biggest fans. At breakfast and lunch she’d amuse them with whole songs of the screaming, much to their delight and enthusiasm. However, the novelty has worn off. She lets out 3 stocatto notes and reaches for a higher one, letting it hang, to wake them up.
“Tess! Stop screaming at us!” Philip reprimands her this morning.
Giggles and more shrieking.
“Tess!” Max sounds groggy and muffled. “It hurts our ears!”
Mirthful laughter and a few long notes.
“We’re sleeping!” they announce together.
Not anymore!
(I blame this on Jac. When she would scream as a baby, he’d smile and announce it good for her lungs. “How else we she get the lungs to be a singer?” Let him deal with the little diva!)