No!

It is no surprise that a recent addition to the boys' vocbulary is the word "no". It is one of the most frequently used words in our house, so it would have been shocking if it didn't make its way out of their mouths early in their development. Lucas used it for the first time yesterday when I tried to offer him more water on our walk. He pushed the cup away and said "no". I couldn't believe it, so I tried again and again was told "no". It was too cool, so I tried again. He shot me an irritated look and I realized it must be as annoying for him to have to say "no" multiple times as it is for me.

Ethan has an interesting relationship to the word "no". He likes to walk me around the house and show me all the things I have told him not to touch, saying "no, no" as he points them out. This would be great except that he concludes by touching each one of these things. He's not exactly getting the point. It has really begun to wear on me, and I admit to giving him one rather gruff "no" as he touched Lucy's dog food for the fifteenth time one day. He gave me a very serious look and I thought I might have finally communicated the seriousness of my "no". However, it simply resulted in a mimicing of my gruff tone as he said "NO, NO" and reached for the dog food for the sixteenth time. Well, at least he's listening.