Bad words

We’ve enjoyed watching T’s miniature vocabulary slowly increase, but over the weekend came an addition that we’d been dreading. It’s short, easy to pronounce, applicable in many different situations, and already extremely annoying. It’s “no”.

Imagine how much better life would be if we could swap the meaning of the word “no” with that of, say, “rhododendron”. Not only would our children be a lot less argumentative, they would also know a lot more about local garden flora. If T had to say “rhododendron” to disagree with anything, it would be at least another couple of years before we had an argument.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, T’s also taken to waking up at about 5am just for a hug, which might be a lot of fun for her but is considerably less amusing for me, the designated early-morning hugger. So it’s just as well she’s so much fun during the 97% of each day when she’s not waking up extremely early or saying “no”. She’s got a scratched nose at the moment from a little fall a few minutes after this photo was taken in Priory Park on Saturday when, just after we left the grass and started walking on tarmac, and with T tottering along in her L-plates-walker way, she fell onto her hands, over them and onto her face. The wounds are only superficial, but it does look a little bit like she’s been mauled by an angry teddy bear.

~ by Simon on October 20, 2008.