It's the beginning of July and unseasonably chilly. 56. Grey clouds. Wet patches on the pavement. It's been a month of rain. The Cannon River swollen over its banks, caution tape warning us off bridges, men with bows and arrows picking off carp that froth, disorientated, in the tumult.
This morning you woke at 4:15, I nursed you, and then you refused to go back to sleep, choosing to scream from 4:30 to 5:55 instead. Midway through the scream-fest I went in to check on you, to make sure you didn't have a dirty diaper or a horn sprouting through your skull, and found you sitting up in the kalidescope light of your mobile, a mobile that you can now turn on by yourself.
You have two teeth cutting through your upper gum. You've perfected the art of land swimming and easily navigate the space from room to room, making little squeaks of glee as you go, toes pressing into the floor and raising you up and forward. In the last few days you've finally started to get up on your knees; you rock for a bit and then commence land swimming again. Bananas are your food of choice, always, followed by bits of bread and cheese, other fruits, yogurt, puffs. You'll tolerate mashed sweet potatoes only if they're spread on a banana or piece of toast first.
Yesterday we received a flyer in the mail from Rice County, the kind that tells you (with exclamation points!) which milestones to look forward to in the next few months, reminds you that you should talk to your child, instructs you not to feed him peanut butter or popcorn, and urges you not to refer to medicine as "candy." One of the developing milestones was "begin using more words." Which is a milestone that suggests your child already has a few words in his or her lexicon, that he or she likes to bust out a "hi" or a "mama" or a "doggie" now and again.
What you like to bust out is a horrific, ear-piercing shriek. It's awful. The other day in the check-out line at Cub you shrieked and everyone within a 20-foot radius turned to look. Your other chosen vocalization is sing-songey vowel sounds in the back of your throat. It's quite lovely, actually. Often you'll be sitting on the rug, happily placing plastic rings on a stick, making your little turtle dove sounds and then, all of the sudden EEEEEEEKKKKKKKK. Daddy and I then look at each other with mild pain and disgust and rub our ears as though rubbing could ease some of the ringing within.
We've tried ignoring the shriek. We've tried saying, firmly, "no." We've tried offering you choices when you shriek, pretending to understand the shriek as an expression of a particular desire. We've tried shrieking back at you. Nothing seems to work.
And truthfully, I am getting a little tired of the whole "don't compare your children" thing. We live by comparisons. We love bestseller lists and super-food rankings. We're constantly passing around graphs on Facebook that show which country has the longest maternity leave, which state has the fattest children. We compare car seats and deck varnishes and sneakers. Before we chose a life partner we (hopefully) put that person in an imaginary line-up with the ones who have come before. But when it comes to children, everyone acts like comparing them is the work of the devil. And maybe it is, but we are raised in a culture of comparison and to pretend that we should be able to shut that side of ourselves off as soon as we have a second mewling infant added to the household is total bullshit.
Comparisons do suck a lot of the time. They're dangerous. But all the same, I brought up the videos yesterday of your sister at eleven months. I watched her walk--then run--all over the house. Watched her obediently bring me a book when asked, watched her point to pictures within the books, watched her utter a single, breathy "hi" (and then "dicka," repeatedly. No idea.)
It is very hard not to see difference as deficiency. Not to see it as lacking. Or slowness. Not to see you as below the curve. Even though I rationally know this is not the case. Even though I know that even if you are slow or below the curve, that my call is to love you in the exact same way. Maybe it's the strange combination of slow(er) development but the new intensity of your shrieking that has me confused. After my former post about your lack of desire, you suddenly seem electrocuted with it, sizzling with a hunger you can only articulate with ear piercing shrieks, contained by a body that will not yet do your bidding.
I suppose thwarted desire always has that effect on a person. As adults, thwarted desire comes out in ways that look like anger or adultery, fear or depression, violence or anxiety. When there is a part of our inner world we can't offer to the outer world, a part of us gets mangled, injured, destroyed in trying to keep that desire contained. Maybe your shriek is the purest version of that experience, maybe the world is filled with thousands of muffled variations of that sound.
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