When Maxon was about 2 or 3 years old, he started making a gritty noise that sounded like he was chewing rocks. I quickly recognized it as tooth grinding. He would work his jaw intermittently throughout the day – a sound which both worried me and turned my skin inside out. I was reassured by the pediatrician and Google that this was a temporary thing, and after several weeks, he did stop.
I didn't think anything of it and enjoyed the absence of Grindy.
Then when he was 5, he started making these odd breathing sounds several times a day, usually when he was sitting quietly or watching TV. They were rhythmic — a series of two quick inhales and exhales, ending on a prolonged sigh. It was always the same tempo and usually very close to my ear. I remember that he made the sound so often in the movie theater during The Fantasic Mr. Fox, that I had to move him three seats away from me.
The breathy noise, like the grinding, did not bring out the best side of me. I was on him to stop multiple times a day, and when I had more patience I tried to talk to him about why he felt he had to make the noise. Then after several weeks, it was gone. He was back to breathing normally. I was back to enjoying the absence of Breathy.
A few months after Breathy stopped, he started with a swishy saliva sound. Always the same amount of swishes, again at random intervals during the day.
Since Swishy stopped we have had the following phases:
- He made a liquidy back-of-the-throat noise, that he called "wicket."
- He walked with slapping duck feet. Every step he took.
- He slurped. With and without beverages.
- He clucked.
- He shouted out every hashtag he saw on any screen, as in "hashtag mystery box!" and "hashtag xmuoldschool!"
- He spun in circles. It was like having a human Beyblade in the house. Spinning, knocking into furniture, falling down. This habit also caused him to become carsick, a condition that ended a few weeks after the spinning stopped.
- He made another swishy noise, a combo of the breathing noise and the swishing noise.
Now he is in what I call the "be-boppin'" phase. It's a finger-snappin', thigh-slappin', mom aggravatin' bad time.
I know the be-boppin' phase, just like all its noisy but otherwise innocuous predecessors, will eventually end. In a few weeks, he won't be drumming his digits on every surface. He won't be snapping his fingers like they are the motor that powers his heart. I won't be asking him to cut it out multiple times a day.
And I will enjoy the absence of Be-Bopper. Until I meet its replacement.