no titu pwease

Sometime in the past week or so, David matured. It is difficult to notice when this happens but suddenly one day, he is able to do a bunch of stuff that he wasn't doing so long ago. It's kind of like when your wife gets her hair cut and, a couple of weeks later, you notice something different, but can't quite put your finger on it. Or at least that is what I hear from other guys with other wives. I don't have that problem. In my life, the wife getting a hair cut is an event on par with the 12 major feasts days of the church.

So David's new mature thing is sentences. Not the old sentences that we carefully teach him like "Cookie, please." He is saying new sentences that has simply heard recently and is repeating.

Examples:

• If anyone expresses excitement or emotion (interjections), he asks, "wh'happ'n [daddy]?" (what happened, daddy?)
• The other day I totally lost my patience with his screaming about some thing or another and told him to shut up. I felt terrible, really. My payment--"shut up, daddy" every so often.
• "Come'ere [daddy]." (come here, daddy)
• "Sit down, [mommy]."
• "Move, please, [Nina]"
• "No titu, please" (no thank you, please)

This last one requires some explanation. Sometimes we ask questions that are actually rhetorical, like "would you like to go to bed now?" Other times we ask something like, "would you like an apple?" It is an honest question, but he thinks it is merely us informing him of his fate. He whines, "Noooo." I explain that the answer is "No, thank you" or "Yes, please." Well, he doesn't have it sorted out and so he has come up with "No, thank you please."

He has more sentences, I promise, but I can't remember them. Generally, his frequency and level of parroting others has really increased lately, sometimes to the degree that it is difficult to carry on a conversation because he just repeats whatever you are saying rather than actually replying.