Henry the Pterodactyl

Henry's not a big talker. Mama. Dog. Bye Bye. Hello. Tickle tickle. Dink du, which is Henry for 'thank you'.

He prefers to point. And scream. A high pitched, ear splitting, asshole drawing up, brain bleeding SCREAM. When I encourage him to "use your words!" he looks at me like "Look, bitch. I can't say 'I'd really like for you to wind up this car and make it go for the one gazillionth time today'. I could say 'dog', but that's not really going to get it done, is it? So I'm going to scream, and if you don't respond, I will throw the car at you. And I'll aim for your face."

A very good mommy will come along and suggest that I teach him baby sign language, to cut down on the frustration - both his and mine.But that would require a) effort and b) reading and I am 1) lazy. I did try teaching him the sign for more, because much screaming takes place in the high chair, if I'm not getting food onto his plate fast enough. So I stood there making the sign and saying "More? Do you want more food?" And he sat there screaming ACK! ACK! (translation: WTF do you think I'm screaming for? Enough with your silly gestures, give me the cheese!).

Like most children, Henry saves up his very best screaming for restaurants. When taking the children out, we tend to frequent kid-friendly establishments (those that don't spit in your food just because you use 4,000 napkins and your table and the surrounding area looks like Motley Crue's hotel room after an all you can eat fried chicken and blow buffet). Even so, between Katie needing to use the bathroom every 10 minutes, and Julia jumping up and down and potentially vomiting on the table (I am so sorry, Chili's on Stratford Road), and Henry's screaming and ripping his placemat from the table and throwing everything he can get his hands on to the floor, well - dining out is not a relaxing experience. To quote my husband on a recent outing - "This is a fucking nightmare."


I remember being delighted when both girls were early talkers. On the flip side, they never shut up. Julia barely draws breath and goes seamlessly from one inane subject to the next. Katie can (and will) give you a very detailed synopsis of every Suite Life on Deck episode, including quoting dialog. They both sing (lovely voices, really. Really.) at FULL VOLUME, all the time. Even if they only know one or two lines, they will repeat those lines - over and over and over.

On second thought, scream on, my son.