ant dat!

Badger has reached the “WANT THAT NOW “stage of his development. Well, I guess he has been in that stage forever but now he is able to verbally express it. As well as voice his displeasure loudly and repetitively if necessary.

It started off slowly, we would pass by a sunglass rack or something similar in the store and he would shout “Ant DAT! Uh uh” To which stupidly, I often replied “Eh, what’s the harm” and let him play with stuff. Unfortunately, this leads to loud screams of despair when play time is over and Badger doesn’t much like it either.

I’m slowly learning through negative reinforcement that it’s better that I just walk on by, often grim faced, my feet keeping time to the sound track of “antdatantantantdatantdatANNNNTTTDATTTT”

I often find myself almost rushing to find something anything that the Badger cannot break into that will distract him for the rest of the shopping trip. Let me tell you it came down to a jar of bread chunks the other day at the specialty grocer. Who buys that anyway at 5 dollars a pop?

I do love when we are sitting together for a meal and he points and says “ant dat ess” which, appears to mean want that cheese. It is a good feeling knowing that we are teaching a Badger to communicate his wants and needs.

Thank goodness he is a cutie!