Baby Book Update: The Default Word

Little Queen is 19 months old now. Nineteen months. She is a lovely and lively little girl, fast on her feet and quick witted; she enjoys a good joke. But there is one trend in her language development that cannot be overlooked. Her words are extremely limited, so she relies on a variety of "no's" for the majority of her communication. The intonation is the key. Let me demonstrate:

• "Little Queen, would you like to look at this book with me?" A sweet and pleasantly pitched, "No" would be the likely affirmative response.
• While looking at said book she may point at a pictured object and ask curiously, "No?" This same question might have been posed by Firstborn 9 years ago as, "Dah?" Both are shorthand for, "What is the name of that object?"
• Perhaps if you ask Little Queen if she open to some activity and she is fairly neutral about the possibility, she will repond with a curt little, "Noah!" But this response leaves space for negotiation, unlike the the real No.
• The Real no is the one that every parent is familiar with which indicates a strong, adamant opposition to the suggestion at hand. This "no" normally accompanies some sort of transition, a change of activity or venue or something particularly annoying to the speaker. Little Queen expresses this with a loud, high pitched, nasal, "Neeeeeeoooooo!"

So, for now, whether it be an affirmative or a negative, the answer is always "No." It was up until about a month ago, though, that whenever she was upset she would scream, "Owww!" The Prof and I didn't think this tactic was good for public relations. (Picture Toddler in front pew at Mass screaming "Owww" because you won't let her sneak out of the pew solo.) In this instance, "No" is the more reasonable response. There are a few other words in her vocabulary: hat, hah (hot), maaahn (mine), ook (look) and some primitive but sweet attempts at her siblings names.

Little Queen knows her nose, eyes, ears, teeth, tongue and more. The three siblings have been joking around a lot lately about mustaches (which for fun they pronounce as m00-stache). They like to turn all sorts of crazy objects into moostaches and have great laughs about it. Well, Firstborn just informed me that when they ask Little Queen where her moo-stache is, she puts her index finger across her upper lip. *sigh* There is no stopping it now, she is one of them.