So we get this new book at the library, and suddenly our daughter has morphed into this strange, new being. She roams around the house as before, talking to herself as before, but now she’s saying things like this:
Oyah, it’s a boyuh!
or
It’s anuthah Mainah!
or
That’s a wicked big toddlah ya got theyah, Jessie!
And all of these things are direct quotes from the book, a tall tale about an extremely large baby born into an extremely small northern Maine town. Except that when she starts talking like this it sounds more like some sort of Yiddish pirate who works in a Northeastern shipyard.
Oyuh, that’s a wicked big bowl of Cheeri–oyuh’s Ma! with a lip snarl, and nearly an Aye Matey…
And it’s a little bit funny, actually a lot funny, but it comes in bouts between the worst case of irritable sobfests we’ve ever seen out of this child. She can literally turn on a dime. It’s very much like all these bad previews for schmaltzy Halloween flicks playing now where the normal people turn wicked bad in an instant. And then it’s gone, and we know it’s over because she’s back to the Mainah.
It’s not entirely her fault – she’s apparently got a mild form of post-concussive syndrome related to a nasty fall with two bumps on the head last Sunday. She’s under observation for now, and besides the wicked big headache she’s got, she just seems really, really grouchy. And then we tried to make this Sunday a better one – you know, the kind without head injury – and she eats a bite of an oatmeal cookie between Sunday school and church, rubs her mouth and eye, and instantly breaks out in hives over her face and her right eye seals shut. So home we go again – last week with a bag of frozen blueberries on her noggin, this week with a cold compress over her eye, and we wonder if we should just give up on Sunday altogether.
They’re getting to be a royuh pain ‘n the neckah.
Oyah vey.