Who's Your Dada??

I’m conflicted about the boys growing up. On one hand, they are great at the minute and part of me wants them to stay that cute forever. That part of me is not keen on sharing a house with two smelly teenage boys. That part wants the relatively uncomplicated relationship where everything can be smoothed over with a bottle.

Then there is the other part. The competitive part of me wants my boys to be bigger, stronger, faster, smarter and generally better than all their peers. The competitive part wants them playing piano concerto’s by the time they are three and dunking a basketball by the time they are nine [I never claimed that the competitive part of me had reasonable expectations!] The competitive part certainly wants them to have more than a dozen, mostly mispronounced, words in their vocabulary by the time they are two. That is where we stand with just over three months to their second birthday though.

I know the rational arguments for not getting too bothered about it, that twins normally speak later than singletons [that word never sits well with me but they use it a lot of articles about twins so I’m going to run with it] and that all kids take their own time about developing but I do get a little impatient with the lack of conversation. I think that they get frustrated themselves too. Since they can’t say “I don’t want the blue brick you clown, pass me the green ball behind you” they just scream and gesture as I pass them every object within reach except the green ball.

The list of words includes; hello, no, bye bye, NO, more, NNOOOO, choo choo, quack, NO, Mama, bo-bo [meaning bottle] and one or two others. Then they have the master word – Nahneh. This has come to mean; mama, Hannah, nana, I want that and, most annoyingly, dad.

Fat Chops is especially fond of it and has been known to repeat it over and over and over to get your attention. Having your full attention is not a deterrent for him, he will just continue to call you and if you happen to be holding him while he is calling you, he will pat you repeatedly on the face with each “Nahneh” just to make sure you couldn’t possibly think about something else.

The other day I took a stand and decided it was time he learned how to say Dada, leading to this exchange;

Fat Chops: Nahneh [beckoning me to follow him]

Karlos: Say Dada.

FC: Dada [with an “if you insist” expression]

Karlos: Good boy.

FC: Nahneh [beckoning for me to follow him again]

Karlos: My name is Dada

FC: Nahneh, nahneh, nahneh [getting impatient that I haven’t followed him yet]

Karlos: My name is Dada

FC: Nahneh

Karlos: Dada [pointing at my chest]

FC: Dada [pointing at his chest wondering what I am rattling on about]]

I gave up soon after that, not because I’m a quitter but because I felt guilty when he started copying me as I banged my head off the wall in frustration. Guess he will get there in his own time!