"Yes please, or no thank you?"

It has been too long since I have written a new blog post. Let's just say that my energy has been spent elsewhere. In other words, I am 18-weeks pregnant and still exhausted! Our sweet baby girl is now a talking toddler, and she constantly amazes me with her vocabulary and skills.

Tonight I was preparing for supper and she was following me around saying, "Co-ahn, Mumma? Co-ahn pease?" I couldn't for the life of me figure out what she was asking for, so I had her show me. She struggled to open the appliance cupboard and I helped her. She pointed back into the dark cupboard and repeated her request. Finally, I put it together. She was asking for popcorn! It has been quite a while since I have made popcorn, but she hasn't forgotten.



Now that she is talking more, I am trying to teach her to use manners. One strategy that I came up with is to give her the words I want her to use and to wait for her to use them. For example, when I offer her something, I give her two polite responses to choose from. "Do you want some more water? Yes please, or no thank you?" If she says, "Okay," I repeat the two responses until she picks and repeats back one or the other. She is getting the hang of it now. Lately she has been responding politely before I have had to remind her of her polite choices.

It makes me smile every time I hear her using her polite manners without being reminded, especially when she is responding to someone other than me. She's not completely consistent yet, but I am proud of her. Now I need to figure out how to keep "thank you" and "you're welcome" from getting confused!