No! More! Barney!

But I don't want to sing the Barney song again.

No, I don't want to make the little Critter do another somersault either.

And I really don't want to do the Barney boogie one more time. I don't even like Barney!

Sometimes I wish two-year-olds didn't know the words "again" or "more" yet.

I spend about 20-23 hours a week with Tegan. Sometimes I think I'm the only one who enforces rules and manners ("Your food can be in one of two places: on your plate, or in your mouth. Okay, or on its way to your mouth. It cannot be smeared on the table, smashed on your chair, mashed in your hair, or mushed on your pants."), but I try not to assume the worst about her parents. Maybe they try as hard as I do, and she's just not interested in compliance. But I can't help noticing that doing things she doesn't want to do or not doing things she does want to do both seem equally foreign to her.

I recently realized that it must be very disillusioning for a young child to learn to talk. Here is Tegan, thinking that as soon as she figures out this strange thing called the English language, she will finally be able to communicate to those around her exactly what she wants and when she wants it. She gets a surprisingly good handle on the whole talking thing by the young age of two, only to realize that just because she can say "No!" or "More! Now!" or "Stop!" doesn't mean she can have any of those things happen according to her whim. It must come as something of a shock.