More to the point, she was a baby who would sit on TLOML's lap in a cafe, quite content to play with a sugar packet or pepper grinder while we enjoyed a relaxed coffee. And she honestly enjoyed sitting with a book. I'm not sure she fully appreciates the narrative ark of 'That's Not My Lion' but she loves turning pages, saying 'oh' at each turn, and touching different parts of the page in wonder. Her mealtimes were leisurely, if messy, affairs as she worked her way through a range of flavours with interest. She made her own amusement, fairly quietly, in many a confined space. So you can imagine we weren't too worried about travelling with her.
That was up until about a fortnight ago. Now it is a different story. Now she shrieks like a pterodactyl* if anything she wants is not immediately placed within her reach. Mealtimes are a rollercoaster ride of pleasure - when she finds something she likes - and terror, when more of that thing isn't instantly provided. Books are for shouting at, bashing and throwing on the floor. And her favourite game is moving at pace into a place of danger, shouting and shrieking on the way.
They say babies change quickly and everything is 'just a phase'. Please pray that this phase is a shortlived one. Or pity the poor sods who are on an 11 hour flight with our tiny tyrant in a few days time.
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*Actually we don't really know what a pterodactyl sounds like. But if you close your eyes and imagine a high pitched, repetitive shriek... well, you get the idea. It's what we imagine a prehistoric angry bird sounds like.
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