Kittyboy has been saying No repetitively for a while. After I would tell him no about something, he would say, "Me no, me no, me no..." as he walked off to find an alternative source of trouble. This morning, he is officially doing the toddler thing of using it for control.
I told him it was time for breakfast. "Nooo beket. Nooo beket." I asked him if he wanted a peanut butter and honey sandwich, since he had to HAVE breakfast. "Nooo pee buh unny." Would he like just peanut butter? "Nooo pee buh." Would he like honey? "Nooo unny okay."
Now, the way he forms his sentences, Okay at the end is a reaffirmation of the previously expressed sentiment - most of the time. He didn't put it at the end of the sentence rejecting peanut butter, however, which lead to confusion. Should that sentence be punctuated with a comma after unny, meaning "definitely no honey" or with a comma after nooo, meaning "Nothing else, but honey is okay"? And if I started putting the wrong thing on that bread, the world would END.
I handed it to him plain. He was happy. Sigh.
I should be a linguist.
Being the Original Strong-Willed Child from whom this one is descended, I'm hoping that I will have insight into his desires and motives and be able to better avoid conflict. The alternative, given our collective Strength of Will, is that there will one day be a smoking crater where our house was.
2 comments:
"Nooo pee buh." That statement would never be uttered by my children
Sometimes I'm afraid the Doctor, during one of their check-ups will ask me "Do you ever feed these children anything but crunchy peanut butter?".
Well, it was certainly a historic first here - I think he was just trying out his new-found power of "no", because prior to this, he would have eaten a peanut butter and honey sandwich three meals a day.
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