Let me back up a bit. For the past 4 months or so, "no" has been Moose's favorite word. She now has many variations of "no."
- Oh no.
- Mama no!
- No more.
- Uh...no.
- No way.
- I said no.
All of those ways to say no and not one way to say yes. Today, I realized that is perhaps due to what we model for her. Today, I also realized that her way of saying "yes," is " in a minute." Wonder where she learned that?! (insert sheepish look).
To be fair, I entertain most of her requests, I just don't say the word "yes." For instance, if she says, "sippy please," I say, "mommy will get you a sippy." When she says "book," I say, "go choose a book and Mommy will read it." So, although many of her requests are met with a "yes" action, the word "yes" is rarely spoken.
And then there is the "in a minute," which she thinks means yes. FAIL. When she asks for something that she can have, but not immediately, I say "in a minute." This morning she asked for eggs. Eggs cannot be given instantaneously, so I said, "mommy has to cook them." Being a toddler, she of course kept asking and asking, so I said "in a minute." Another example: when she asks to go outside, I say "in a minute, we have to get shoes on."
When I put it that way, it doesn't seem quite as much like a fail, but it certainly reminds me to be aware of what I say. Clearly we have modeled "no" quite a bit and now we have modeled "in a minute." Today's response to her book was quick lesson that we need to start modeling the more "yes" a bit more in our house.
Has anyone else had any parenting fails lately? C'mon...it'll make me feel better.
Moose and I reading. See, I'm not an awful parent!
