Oh. Yes. The down side of language development. My son has, within the last two days, mastered the word “no.”  Greeeaaat.

For the moment, actually, it’s kind of cute.  He’s been doing the negative-head-shake if you ask him a question and he’s not interested.  But now we have the vocal “no” to go with it.  So far, it’s not a rude-sounding word.  Just a somewhat sweet-sounding answer to a question.  Or, much of the time, simply a sound he’s practicing.  He can be standing off by himself, checking something out, saying “no, no, no, no.”  In his very sweet voice, in response to absolutely nothing.

But it’s coming, oh, it’s coming. Soon, I fear, we will make the leap to the loud, whiny, defiant “NO!”  And I’m not sure how that one’s going to go.

My husband was raised in a household where “no” was not something you said to your parents.  Oh, you might plead and beg and even whine.  But you didn’t say “no!” when mom or dad told you to do something. It simply was not done. I will have to ask my mother-in-law how they managed that one.  Oh, I’m sure they had some of the typical toddler “no,” but I need to find out how they managed to nip it in the bud.

I’ll keep you posted…