She Must Have Swallowed a Steam Engine

Ava's journey into linguistics has resulted in sounds that I don't think even she knew she could make. She has found ways to syncronize her lips, tongue, and vocal chords in such a way that you could imagine a train has derailed in our backyard.

There's her favorite: "ahEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE", during which she typically draws her arms in close to her body, pulls her lips back against her face, and strains as if she is creating a brown, smelly masterpiece in her pants. Her face turns red as she strains to maximize the potential annoyance of this chaotic sound. You would think that she was expressing her extreme distaste for the green vegetable baby food we feed her. In fact, she does this when she's happy, sad, tired, playing with toys, or contemplating how else she could contort herself to make that "EEEE" a little louder or sharper. She just seems to like making the noise. Hopefully she will eventually refine her technique such that her pitch escalates to where only the dogs can hear her.

Within the past few days she has started making this noise, initially with her pacifier in her mouth, but now without. It has a machinery sound to it, almost like a heart beat or a steam engine. Its kind of funny because when she first started making this noise her pacifier would go all the way in her mouth, then shoot outwards while she held onto it with her lips. It has rhythmic quality just as if a train engine was beginning to pick up speed leaving the station (Dad, I dedicate that reference to you). Now that I think about it, her "ahEEEEEEE" could almost be interpreted to be her attempt at a train whistle.

It appears that, despite Doni's hopes against it, the"train-chasing" gene has been passed on from Grandpa Jackson to Ava. CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific.... consider yourself warned.

(If you have no idea what "train-chasing" is, see railfan.net)