Zachary takes such delight in telling us things. The frequent heard shout of, ‘oh DUDE! bum.’ gives me mixed feelings. I find it funny because it’s so cute (the ‘oh dude’ part came from my exclaimation when I’d be changing his nappy and it was a bad one), but I also get a feeling of dread because Emma’s then taught him to say, ‘Daddy bum’, which apparently is him wanting me to change it.
It’s not all fun and joy though; he’s been lashing out a lot recently when he’s been frustrated and it’s directed at us (ie, he’s trying to hit us). Beyond telling him, ‘NO!’, and then asking him to say sorry and then give us a cuddle (with or without him having a couple of minutes of timeout in the playpen), I don’t know what we can do.
He’s not at an age where we can reason with him but that doesn’t make is any less upsetting for us.