Yes or No

To me, one of the most amazing things about watching your child grow, is watching them learn to communicate.  Babies start with just one way to tell you what they want, crying.  As a new parent, you a left to figure out what that crying means.  Hungry? Tired? Dirty Diaper? Or just plain cranky? Jack had a very distintive hungry cry. If you heard a “Meeeeeh, Meeeeeh” cry along with balled up fists, feed that kid.  I wasn’t so lucky with Xander. All of his cries sounded the same.  I eventually figured it out, but having this tiny person who could only cry to tell me that he needed something really made me appreciate my toddler who could talk in whole sentences.

Fortunately, I knew that Xander’s time would come and he would eventually be able to communicate and tell us what he wanted.  At just shy of 17 months, that time has come!  Xander has been talking for a while now.  His first word was Jack.  He also says a host of other words, Mama, Dada, more, up, baba (bottle), Jelly (the dog), brother, car, me. . .I could go on and on.  He has at least 20 words that he says and last week he even uttered his first two word “sentence”.  He stood in the family room and threw his binky.  He looked at me and said “Where go?” and then ran to get his binky.  He repeated the activity for a good five minutes.  I swear I almost died from the cute.

Xander’s latest way to communicate is the nod or shake his head when you ask him a yes or no question.  He often adds a “yesh” or a “nnno” as he answers. It’s adorable the way he so deliberately nods his head.  I seriously want to sit and ask him yes or no questions all day long.

Here’s a sample of some of our recent conversations:

Me: Do you love Daddy?

X: Nods yes

Me: Is Daddy your best friend?

X: Smiles and nods yes

Me: Do you love Mommy?

X: Nods yes

Me: Is Mommy your best friend?

X: Shakes head no

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As we were getting ready for bed, I was making Xander’s bottle. The child absolutely positively refuses to give up his night-time bottle of milk.  And it absolutely positively must be lukewarm.

Me: Do you want a bottle?

X:  Nods yes

Me: Will you drink the milk cold?

X: Shakes head no

Me: Do you drink cold  milk at school?

X: Nods head yes

Me: Do you drink milk from a sippy at school?

X: Nods head yes

Me: Will you ever drink milk from a sippy at home?

X: Shakes head no.

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I refuse to acknowledge the fact that he may be a little Daddy’s Boy and is a little stinker for saying that Daddy is his best friend.  Let’s also conveniently ignore the fact that he totally has me on the whole bottle thing.  I’m sure a few days of only giving him milk in a sippy cup at night would solve the bottle issue, but I admit it, I’m weak and he totally has me wrapped around his little finger.  Good thing he said yes when I asked if he loves Mommy!

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