The Power of No

The Power Of No
Hayden is a very vocal one year old. She has always been a yapper. I remember at my first Mommy and Me Group meeting, the ten of us sat around the room with the car seats between our legs. All the other babies were so quiet, Hayden would moan, yelp, and babble. She was five weeks old. At the time, I didn’t know the girl next to me. After a year, we’ve become very good friends. She still laughs remembering how shocked she was that Hayden would talk.
I don’t think most kids are as vocal as my girl, but it makes a lot of sense. I have a pretty big mouth myself. Well, so I’m told… by my Mother, Father… Husband… and so on. In high school I was voted Class Dreamer (because I would sleep through 1st and 2nd periods religiously) as well as Class Loudest. I always thought they voted me that because I was co-captain of the cheerleading squad- but maybe not so much. I went on to teach Public Speaking at the college level, so maybe it’s not horrible to be vocal, but this week Hayden got me thinking…
She says a lot of words and will actually repeat sounds that she hears. She’s been calling “Mama” forever now. The other day, I was changing her diaper and I swear she called me Anna. I brushed it off and we set out to my mother’s house. We arrived and she immediately was excited to see my Mom and called “Nonna” (Italian for Grandmother)- Then we looked at me again and said “Anna”. I looked at my mom and she asked “Did she just call you Anna?”. Hm. Not sure. My mother picks her up and asks her, “Where’s Mommy?” and on cue she turns and points to me… “Anna”. How do I react to that? I’m figuring that she’ll eventually go back to calling me Momma. And if she doesn’t- then well… I guess Hayden will be the only child in the universe that calls their mother by their first name.
She has also learned the power of “no”. I read waaaaaay too much. I have researched discipline to death and spent a lot of time letting Hayden get into everything. One article I read stated that if you use the word “no” too much, it won’t have much impact in serious situations. It reminded me of when we were training our family dog. We had the emergency word that we would only use when the dog would run into the street- I treated the word “no” the same way with Hayden.
That lasted about four days. Forget it. She gets into everything. EVERYTHING. My new favorite word is no. No- she can’t play with her poop. No- she’s not allowed to play with the fireplace poker. No- she can’t drink Mommy’s Cabernet. No-she cannot put her hands in the fish tank. Well, guess what new word Hayden learned? You guessed it. No. Not only was the article right, if you use the word too much it has no impact, but now she tells me no. When I try to get her to walk, she says no. When I put her down for a nap, she screams no. When I attempt to get her to eat some broccoli, she shakes her head and says no. But if I say no to anything- she will totally ignore me.
I was hoping by the time I wrote this blog this week, I would have some resolution to the first name issue and the no problem- but I don’t. It continues to be a work in progress. Stay tuned.