Tuesday, September 9, 2014

"No, mine."

Will likes to say, "No, mine,"

This weekend he was even quietly practicing it to himself at he sat on the floor with his Duplos. "No... mine. No, MINE." Bit overheard him and thought it was hilarious. I overheard him and told him to cut it out.

I always tell him it's not nice to say, but I never come down too hard on him for it because I want him to understand that there ARE times you can claim possession. Nicely, of course. But not yet does he understand the line between graciously establishing possession (protecting your property from baby drool) and selfishly screeching, "NO, MINE!"

Still, I think he knows it's kind of a taboo phrase and therefore his enjoyment of using it is heightened,

Often, he'll justify: "Momma, Pigeon say 'no mine'."

  
"Yes," I reply, "and that's not nice when he says that. We don't want to be selfish, we want to be generous." Blah blah blah. It's at these moments I feel very "mommish".

Yesterday at breakfast, we had the Rhyming Bible out. Barrett was eating in his chair and Will was eating in his booster and so it was a good time to read together. There's a story of Jesus that William likes (because there's an illustration of a black rabbit that he's fond of), so I was reading that to him. Barrett reached for something on the table and Will cried, "No, Barrett! Mine!"

"Will," I said, trying to take the opportunity to teach a little bit, "Jesus didn't say, 'no, mine'. Jesus gave up everything for us. He even said, 'Here's my life, I give it for you.'"

"Momma, Jesus say 'no mine'." The conversations you have with a two year old.

"No, Jesus didn't say 'no, mine'. He said, 'Here, this is for you!'"

"Jesus no say, 'no mine'."

"That's right."

But later that day, he was being the Pigeon again, so who knows what good it did.

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