Since Christmas, life around the Faust household has been a bit more…noisy. All of a sudden, as if discovering how useful language can be, Liam has decided that it’s time to talk. And 90% of it involves the word ‘no.’

Liam always appeared to have great language skills, it’s just that he never seemed to want to use what was in his enormous head. He comprehends a great deal of words and would learn how to say them, but then he would just file them away once mastered. This was frustrating for us because communicating with a toddler is by default a bit like defusing a bomb…one wrong guess at their needs and you have an evening’s worth of hell to pay.

We’ve been fortunate up until this point, however, to not have a toddler who used the vocal weapon of ‘no’. Sure, he had the head shake down, but that just comes across as rather cute, and not—how should we say—obstinate? But apparently ‘no’ is The New Whatever because he uses it all the time.

I have to give him credit though, he’s talking a lot more about everything. Lots of animal noises and gestures, from turkeys to penguins to badgers (still working on the wolverine noise, though). But his go-to really is NO. And he has multiple versions. There’s the Cute No, the Unsure No, the No but Yes No, and the ARE YOU KIDDING ME No. For example:

“Can you give your dad a hug?” Noooo. [sheepish smile and a hug]

“Do you want to take your coat off an put it in the closet?” No? [proceed to run to coat closet]

“Would you like dad to get your toy bin out?” No! [tries to pull basket onto his head]

[turning to the dog begging at his high chair] NO!

And then sometimes he just looks at Jonas and says “bye bye.” This kid definitely has my sense of humor. Needless to say the noise level in the house has increased a few decibels as he now babbles to his toys or reads the books by himself making animal noises as he points them out. It’s heartwarming to see him finally embrace the power of language.

So last night, The Wife™ is in his nursery, gently rocking him for a minute before bed, singing him a song. As he’s getting sleepy she lays him in his crib and she slowly begins to tip-toe out of the room so as not to wake him and she whispers goodnight…to which Liam bolts awake and declares proudly, “BYE BYE.”

Apparently he’s got the concept of sarcasm down. He’s going to fit in well in this family.