NO!

by Ashley Weeks Cart

Hey everyone! LOOK! Look at what the Bug has learned to do!

** Now let’s just pretend for a moment that there is a video clip here wherein you witness the Bug violently and determinedly shaking her head back and forth**

Vision conjured?

Okay great. Thanks for that. Our home is still a sea of boxes – so the ability to locate the cord that connects the video camera to our computer is literally like finding a bum in Greenwich, CT. Impossible.

So anyway, this violent head shake. Every parents’ dream, right? To have a child that has learned how to express herself? Especially when that expression is to show disgust, dislike, disdain and straight up defiance.

The kid is all, Vegetables, are you kidding me? FUCK NO!

Removing me from my joyous, warm bath where I get to eat bubbles and chew on rubber duckies? You are out of your mind!

Shoving my arms through sleeves, i.e. vicsious wormholes of death? You are mistaken!

Stupidly, James and I initially encouraged this expression because we were THOSE overeager first-time parents who obviously thought that their kid was the next Einstein because she had made the correlation between the utterance, NO, and the head shake that accompanied said word. We were a little, um, enthusiastic:

JESUS CHRIST! LOOK AT HER! SHE IS BRILLIANT! A GENIUS! LOOK AT HER SHAKE HER HEAD! SUCH GRACE! SUCH MAGNIFICENCE! SUCH DETERMINATION!

Yes, it was as if we were watching an Olympic sport.

No, not curling. ICE DANCING!

These boasts of pride were accompanied by our own repeated and excited expressions of, No-ne-no-ne-NO! while shaking our own heads to applaud and validate the behavior.

And then my parents came to visit and their first thought?

FUCKING IDIOTS!

My mother spent all weekend trying to get Addison to unlearn the most powerful word in the English language. No amount of yeses, yeahs, or yays would deter Sunny from her new found power. And trust, it is power.

Our picky eater can now tell us exactly how she feels about every god-forsaken morsel of food we dare put near her lips. WHY ARE YOU POISONING ME PEOPLE?! Give me the Cheerios! HAND OVER THE CHEERIOS OR I SHAKE MY HEAD UNTIL IT FALLS OFF!

Sunny gets particularly annoyed with Ursa when she tries to invade Addison’s personal space and lick up the stray carrots, yogurt, squash, any vegetable of the green variety, that has been sprayed violently out of her mouth in revolt. She now grasps Ursa’s snout and pushes away while shaking that head and looking ironically reminiscent of a wet dog – long baby hair flying back and forth for extra emphasis.

I can already picture her, age 15, flipping that hair in comparable abhorrence when her parents are being SO UNCOOL! And we DON’T UNDERSTAND HER AT ALL!

On that note, I made James watch Sixteen Candles with me last night, because, A. Brilliant movie and B. Proper education for a parent who will one day father a 16-year old girl himself.

In the scene where Sam weeps in the hallway at the high school dance because she has been SO EMBARRASSED by the nerdy kid dancing with her in front of her crush, James looks at me, totally perplexed, and is all, WTF? Why is she crying?

<deepdramaticonedayyouwillunderstandsigh>

Oh baby, you just wait…. just wait.