Chicken Talk

A chicken going "tck, tck, tck" as it pecks is announcing the presence of food. That clucking makes the chicken the first animal other than primates that's been shown to make sounds that, like words, represent something in the environment, researchers say.

Madeline is our verbal child. She is the child, whom given the chance, (or not) will talk to you about everything under the sun (and beyond). She is the child, whom after dosing up with Easter candy (which I swear has the addictive properties of street drugs...I seriously cannot stop eating those Robin Eggs and the only thing preventing me from going out and buying a dozen more bags while on sale is that we have hit our food budget for the month and I made a New Year Resolution to stick to the darn budget)...anyway, so she was riding quite the sugar high when she proceeded to go up to the front of the church during "children's time" and make it her platform for Madeline's Stand Up Hour. She's cute, especially in her little pig tails and party dress, which means most of what she says is hilarious, whether it is or not. (You can catch her next episode during her bedtime...oh and sometimes she's been known to carry on in her sleep as well. I have even watched her wake herself up while talking to herself in her sleep! No kidding.)

So there she is, up in front of the church and the Pastor makes the mistake of looking at her or at least being present and then he goes on to top it off with ASKING A QUESTION and even Aidan, who typically wouldn't even raise his hand if asked "which child up here loves ice cream" starts to answer away in some sort of sugary speak. But it is Madeline who continues the conversation as if the sanctuary wasn't filled to the max with over 200 people watching. And I couldn't hear what she said over Liam who was persistent in his quest for MORE food, MORE, MORE, MORE NOOOOOOOOOOW but whatever it was had the entire church rolling. And when the pastor paused to take a breath after reining it back in, she interrupts the millisecond of silence to answer the question from earlier, again...this time I caught something about eggs... Kurt looks at me in horror, asking if he needs to go tell her to be quiet and with the image in my head of a really big 3-year-old-fit in the middle of the 11:00 Easter Sunday Service, I replied: "nope," the pastor could handle it, which he did, kind of.

The thing about having a child that talks incessantly is that you never quite know what direction they will take you. Today for example, Madeline asks: "Mom, what is that squished food that dad eats that I don't like?"

Quite honestly, I haven't a clue as to what she is talking about so I ask her, "What does it look like?"

She gets flustered, of course, because apparently "squished" was enough of a description and she nearly screams "WHY DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN MOM? That SQUISHED food that has the cheese on it!"

Still clueless, I ask if it contains meat, which about sends her over the edge. How on earth could I think it might have meat in it for crying out loud?!

After a very brief second she responds, "What's on the spider, mom?"

Now I am really confused. "Madeline, daddy doesn't eat spiders."

"NO MOM! What's on the spider's legs?"

Feeling in a bit of a daze, either I am not getting enough sleep or she is making no sense whatsoever, or both, I ask, "You mean the web?"

"Yes, the web!" she says excitedly as if I had told her we would be eating the rest of our Easter candy for dinner before staying up to talk all night. "Spiders make webs mom!"

And now for something totally different. Perhaps I'd do better to talk with the chickens...tck tck tck...