So it started out as an imitation of “You Monkeys You” from the book Caps for Sale. She’d make a little L out of her thumb and first finger and shake her fist and say “doh doh doh”…
Now the “doh’s” have turned into full blown No’s, and she walks around going “no no no no no” and shakes her head and wags her finger in the air. Sometimes she even does it to us, but mostly she’s (I think) reminding herself what she’s not allowed to do. So she’ll sit on the sofa and try to reach the lamp, where I always say “Oona, no thank you!” but now I see her beat me to it — I’ll see her shaking her head saying “No. No.” as she’s reaching for the lamp. hehehee.
The best though was about a week ago… She’s also in a phase where she likes to pick up her bowl and dump the contents of her dinner on the floor. I usually get her to stop before it goes too far, but the other day she was particularly aggressive about it and I gave her a very serious, very stern NO! and snapped my finger at her. And what did she do? She furrowed her brow, gave me the look of death evil baby face, and immitating me, yelled NO! back at me, all the while shaking her whole arm, shoulder and finger at me with this teenaged “No you di’nt, bitch!” getto move. When she saw my stunned expression she burst out laughing!! A big hysterical belly laugh. And then the little fucker threw a piece of cheese at me! My mouth was hanging open, and then I burst out laughing too and tried to get my stern face back on. But she was just so damned cute!!!! No use at all. She’s gonna walk all over me, I can see it now.