you, myself, and I

Smart he may be, but our son has not yet mastered one key component of toddlerdom: Me. As in "me! me! me!" and "me do!" Oh, we hear it, never fear -- just not like you'd expect. What the outside observer might hear makes our son sound so nice and pleasant and un-Two as to make them wonder what our secret is. It's time we let our secret out: Pronoun confusion.

Where most toddlers say "me", Gavin says "you." So on a bazillion-times-daily basis, cries of "you! you! no, you!" ring through our hallowed halls. Phrases such as "you cup," "you stir," and "you watch" are common too.

For a time, it was fairly straightforward. He was you and we were me. So if he said "you shoe," we knew he meant his own shoe. And if he said "no, me do" we knew he meant he wanted us to do something, although I must admit we have not heard this particular piece of phraseology often.

But now it grows murky, because selectively "you" means me or Jason. And "me" can now mean Gavin. Sometimes. And very often, Gavin misunderstands what we say, thinking that when we say "you," we mean ourselves and not him. So conversations often sound like this.

"No! NO!!!! Me!"

"What, I am doing it!"

"No! You!"

"OK, fine, you do it. Here."

"No! You!"

"Right, you do it."

"Nooooooooo!"

Big sigh. "Fine, GAVIN do it."

"yes!"

No wonder I've found three new grey hairs in the last week alone.

But it does lend to some amusing moments. One particular phrase that Gavin has picked up in recent weeks is "at you," which means something or someone is looking at him. So he'll look at his lego man or a stuffed bunny and say "at you," worriedly -- he decidedly doesn't like things looking at him. Or he'll exclaim, "Big boy at you!" if a big boy from down the street happens to look at him while we're playing outside. Yesterday Jason and Gavin were looking at a picture of Gavin as a baby that's hanging on the wall. Gavin loooked at it for a moment and then said, "You at you."

Posted by allison at April 15, 2006 11:04 PM