Frustrations of a One Word Kid

Posted on 05 29, 2006 under The Manual by Noodad | Comments

"Mo". That"s the word my wife and I hear about a thousand times a day. Sometimes it comes out "Muh" or "Mmuh" but always hovers around the starts-with-a "M" and ends-with-an "uh" universe. My son has mastered this one quasiword. Unfortunately he hasn"t mastered anything else. "Mo" is uttered many times a day because it gets a response from us. It is a word that demands response because we never truly have a clue what he"s asking for.

They say the Eskimos have many different words that mean snow. Personally, I fail to see the big deal as I have hundreds of words that mean poop, puke, and masturbation. I digress. My son has one word that means 13 different things.

In my world, "Mo" refers to Cheeks, Vaughn, or more recently, Willie Pena. It also means "more" when I"m feeling lazy to complete the 4-letter word or if I want to be bettah and I want an increased number of blues. In my son"s world, "Mo" means anyone of the following:
• Mom and Dad, I want more of that delicious food you have dutifully prepared for me.
• No, you guessed wrong, try the next thing to offer me and I will tell you that is wrong too.
• Give me more milk in my sippy cup.
• I know I already have milk in my sippy cup but I  will utter this word while holding up my full cup just to confuse the hell out of you.
• I want something other than the 5-course meal of slop you prepared for me.
• I don"t know what I want but I"ll stop saying this word once I get it.
• I"m not hungry
• I"m not sure if I am hungry

The problem with this scenario, of course, is that this process is as frustrating for my son as it is for my wife and I. He wants to be able to get what he wants and we want to be able to give it to him. He just hasn"t learned the other, more specific, words yet. So we do our best to repeat each word as we give him things. "Would you like to have some more apples?" instead of "Yo kid, want more of dis?"

Eventually, he will catch on. Until then, we need to just settle for celebrating the occasional "Duh" amongst a sea of "Mo"s.

Anyone else go through this frustration?

 

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Viewing 4 Comments

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    Showing your noo again. You can apply the [b]mo[/b] to many things, all being practice for the the ultimate [b]mo[/b], [b]mo[/b]ney. [b]Mo[/b]re coming in a close second and often used in conjuction with [b]mo[/b]ney. For example, \"Dad can I have some [b]mo[/b]ney to go to a show with my friends?\" You reply, \"Sure son, here ya go.\" Then he says, \"Dad, I\'m gonna need [b]mo[/b]re [b]mo[/b]ney than that.\" To which you reply, \"Son, that is [b]mo[/b]re than enough, [b]mo[/b]ney doesn\'t grow on trees you know.\" Then with no other recourse, he pulls out his [b]mo[/b] in the hole when he yells, \"[b]MO[/b]M!!!\"

    Having a bit of fun with you bro, yet so true. heh

    Seriously, I can remember telling my wife on more than one occassion how heartbroken I was when one of my 2 were sick and couldn\'t tell us what was wrong.

    My youngest brother used the word \"ane\" pronounced like Jane without the J for everything. To this day the middle brother and I give him crap about it. If he askes us if we want something we both say \"ANE!\" heh
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    You may want to try [URL=http://signingtime.com/]Baby Signing Time[/URL]. We\'ve been doing this with our daughter since she was 8 months or so, and it\'s been a great success.

    This could really help with your son\'s the frustration, and it\'s fun for parents too.

    As a plus, the DVDs are [I]way[/I] better produced than most designed-for-toddlers discs -- far above the Baby Einstein league. And the music is some of the least-horrible kids music I\'ve come across.
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    The [URL=http://www.signingtime.com/store/babysigningtimedvdgiftset-p-63.html]Baby Signing Time Gift Set[/URL], which includes both of the toddler-oriented episodes, is $55, but it\'s without question some of the best $55 we\'ve spent on baby stuff.
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    Not sure how old your son is, but my son is 9 months old, and has been uttering the words ...\"Uh Ohhhh\" for the last month. Its pretty cute and pretty funny at the same time. All we have to say is \"Uh Oh\", to get him started.

    I wouldn\'t worry about it if I were you. Their speech starts in little bits, with alot of repetition. Just enjoy the Moh, and wait for him to start talking : )
 

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