Shriek a Doodle Doo

Bree has been driving me absolutely bonkers lately with her incessant yelling, screaming and shrieking around the house. She's going through that phase kids go through where they love to scream just to hear the sound of their own voice and how different and funny it sounds. Nevermind that they're driving everyone else up the wall. So, this past week or so whenever she's not going "Hey Mom, Mommy, Hey, Hey Mom," then she's trying to body slam the cat and screaming at the top of her lungs. It's enough to make me want to scream myself and sometimes I do, "Would you stop?!" I'll snap at her, or "QUIT!" (Yeah, I'm not up for any mother of the year awards recently.) Well, finally the other day after she'd been shrieking I heard her say "nissimo." I knew immediately she was trying to say "fortissimo" which means loud in musical terms...she'd picked this little nugget up from, yep, TV again...off a musically based show called Little Einsteins (thanks a lot!). Yes, it's a normal toddler phase but I also blame the Little Einsteins for my troubles. I'm thinking about writing a strongly worded letter to them. Anyways, after trying ignoring the yelling (impossible) and also using warnings and time outs (she'd be in time out all day) I've finally settled on making her stand on the balcony if she wants to scream (the inside, outside voice method). Now when she starts up I tell her we can only scream outside and ask if she wants to go out there. If she says no than I tell her she better stop screaming then and use her indoor voice. This is a good method...at least it's a more measured response on my part than losing my cool and snapping at her. I guess I need to re-read the "patience-of-a-saint" part of the Mommy Manual. Oh wait, Bree didn't come with one? What?!