Poor Bennett...he wants to be big so bad. He thinks he's 5 just like brother, only with the vocabulary of a two year old. His best phrases are: "me too", "not me", "yeah, me know how" and "me no like dat". Ever since he started putting syllables together at 12 months old, he has spoken in triplicate. An example would be "eat, eat, eat" or "me bayme, me bayme, me bayme" (translation 'my baby' - yes, my two year old son has a baby doll - that's a whole other story). So, he likes to make sure he is heard. I guess that comes with being the second child. But, he has found that that technique, along with a very whiney sounding voice, moves us into action.
He used this technique on me today when we took Gavin to his first swim lesson. Brother had his shoes off, so Bennett says in his very loud, whiney voice "me too, me too, me too". Why not, I figure, it can't hurt anything. Brother takes his shirt off so he can get into the pool. Again, Bennett repeats his request. Again, I concede because I know he likes to be like brother. But when Gavin gets into the pool and Bennett keeps yelling (yes, he's moved up a notch from whining to yelling to emphasize how desperate he is) "me too, me too, me too", I had to draw the line. Unfortunately, Bennett could not see the line and continued to press me from all sides and took his triplicate talk to new levels.
For 30 minutes - non-stop - he repeated his request and for 30 minutes I told him when he was 3 he could take swim lessons. So, he had a very simple solution for me. He would tell me "me want be free (3) right now" (x3). Now I have to explain the concept of time.
This was a very hard lesson for him and I feel bad for taking him to a pool and not letting him swim. But he did well considering. Now I only have 4 more days of this. I'm sure he'll forget this lesson come Monday when swim lessons resume and we'll start all over again.
