Procrastinet

Outflanked

filed under: Dadditudes

We're trying to get Max to ask for things in complete sentences. We've also been brainwashing him with manners, so much so that now when he asks for something and we say "And what do you say?" he tends to reply, pre-emptively, "Pleaseandthankyou!"

So he'll chant "More VeggieBooty?" and we'll say "what do you say?" and he'll say "pleaseandthankyou" and we'll say "so put that all together!" and he'll go "PLEEEEEEAAAASE!!!!!" and we'll give up and give him the Veggie Booty before he whines at the frequency that makes our ears bleed. But we're still trying in vain to get him to insert the object right into the sentence - i.e., "moVeggieBootypleaseandthankyou!"

All of which led to this conversation at dinner:

Max: (Pointing to his empty sippy cup) More?

Lisa: More what?

Max: Pleaseandthankyou!

Lisa: (Pointing to the sippy cup) Yes, but what is this?

Max: Empty.

Kid's got a point.

[Editor's note: apparently in my first draft of this post I grossly misrepresented the state of my child's speech. I have been corrected, and so in due course has the post. Thank you.]

Posted by rjt at September 23, 2005 07:00 PM