“Noooo…!”

One of the potential “upsides” of The Little Empress taking her sweet time to say words was the fact that she didn’t really have a word for “no”. For the longest time, she would simply shake her head if she didn’t want something. Eventually she added “nu-uh” to her vocabulary which was often punctuated with a cute little shake of the head.

A few days before she started school, it seemed that she had found a word for “no” but instead of “no” it came out more like “mo”. And this too was absolutely adorable as she still couldn’t quite get the “n” sound for “no” and would simply whine “mooooooooooo” (as in an elongated “mow” rather than the sound cows make) instead of saying “no”.

Her first day of school, she had a new word: no. She had the dreaded N – O word and she could say it without too much difficulty. For a few weeks, she tested out the new no a few times but still relied on “nuh-uh” or shakes of the head to get her point across.

These past few days has seen a huge uptick in the usage of the word no. Instead of a simple “no” it is now “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” complete with the bold and exclamation points. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” is her instant reaction to just about anything we ask her these days, whether we’re suggesting that it is time for her bath, time to sleep or hell, even to ask if she would like a cookie for breakfast.

My child says no to cookies for breakfast. What. the. hell?! Obviously, I have not trained her correctly.

Now I think it is safe to say that the with the arrival of the word “no” (and meaning it — boy does she mean it!!) that the Terrible 2s are (finally?) here in force.

Is it too much of me to hope that the next word that she adds to her vocabulary may be something of the affirmative? I’d love a “yes” to contrast the “no” every once in awhile.

Be Sociable, Share!

•