Communicating with a toddler can, at times, be quite frustrating, and not for the reasons you might think. Sure, the ear-piercing “NOOOO!” that can be heard 300 miles due South can be difficult, but our main issues seem to stem from what are turning out to be simple miscommunications. When I say something like “Go get your pink shoes,” what I am asking our daughter to do seems clear enough, and until recently I thought she was understanding me. But as time goes by, it is becoming more and more clear that Baby 1.0 does not understand approximately 80% of the words coming out of my mouth. Sure, there are people who will argue that she is hearing and understanding me, and then deciding to mentally flip me a tiny, perfect, pink, middle-finger, but she’s so sweet and precious and there’s just no way that she would consciously and intentionally disobey me this often. Clearly the only explanation is that she just has different definitions of nearly every word in the English language.

Here are our most common trouble words: (more…)