Go Away!

As we near the infamous age of two, we notice that the hints of what is so "terrible" about this age come a little more often. Jack is very head-strong and defiant. He knows what he wants, he's not afraid to turn unto jell-o (and thereby become completely unmanageable) at a moment's notice and flop around on the floor, and he uses his fairly good vocabulary skills to communicate what he wants as well. I do like the latter portion of that... when he's being nice.

Jack was in the bathtub this morning while Kyle was in the shower and I was getting ready. The bathtub is behind the sink at an angle, so I can see him in the mirror the entire time that I'm doing makeup, hair, etc. I can also see the scampy look he gets on his face every time I tell him not to turn on the water faucet just to leave it running throughout his bath. So... he kept turning on the faucet and I turned around and turned it back off. We played this game a few times and the next time he went to turn it on I did a sort of "Oh no you don't" sound- something like "dup dup dup"- something I'm sure I can't capture well here, except to remind you of Austin Powers and his friend "zip it." After a few rounds of that, Jack looked up at me very seriously, raised his hand with his palm towards me and said "Go away."

My jaw hit the floor. My one year old just told me in no uncertain terms that my presence here was neither required nor desired.

"Go away."

So, I repeated it back to him: "You want me to go away?"

"Yeah."

I retreated around the corner to the shower and waited a few seconds before popping back out to find him with his hand raised towards the knob for the faucet. He halted and then repeated "Go away."

I actually will admit that I wasn't hurt or offended at all. In fact, I think it's one of the funniest, most brilliant things he's ever done. I liked that he asserted himself without having a screaming, crying fit, even though he was telling me to get bent.

He tells me to Go Away so sweetly that I just can't help but laugh.