Spelling Time

“N-O spells no!” Natalie said gleefully. “N-O spells noooooo!”

This would have been cute had she not done this at least twenty times already.

“Natalie,” I said, rubbing my temples. “Just eat your broccoli. It’ll make you big and strong.”

“N-O spells noooooo!”

“Stop it, Natalie. That’s annoying,” Tommy grumbled.

Yes. It was.

I mean, it’s great she’s learning to spell in Kindergarten. But does she have to constantly spell no at me?

And she not only spells it at me. She writes it all over the house. On paper, thank goodness, but she’ll silently hold up the paper and tap on it.

She does know how to spell yes. She just prefers to spell no. Apparently.

“If you don’t eat your broccoli, you won’t get a popcicle,” I explained.

Natalie clamped her mouth shut.

Fine. At least she was quiet. Tom isn’t around because he had to go on a work thing so it’s just been me and the kids. Natalie would never spell no at Tom. When he tells her to do something, she does it. Me? Well, she thinks I’m amusing. She gives me the same look she used to give me as an infant. “Really? THIS is my mother? She expects me to listen to HER?”

The spelling has been happening for a couple of weeks. Most of the time I don’t mind. She’ll randomly go, “T-H-E spells the! C-A-T spells cat. We have a C-A-T!”

But the no thing makes me twitch. I’ll tell her it’s time to take a bath.

“N-O,” she’ll say.

“I’ll add bubbles,” I promise.

“Y-E-S,” Natalie will go.

I know I shouldn’t bribe like that but when Tom isn’t around, my patience is thin. She knows this. I was an only child, raised without the constant noise and chatter, and one would think I’d be used to it at this point but no.

“What do you want for dinner?” I asked the other day. “Tacos?”

“N-O.”

“Chicken patties?”

“N-O!”

“Spaghetti?”

“Y-E-S!”

Still, sometimes it can be sweet. Sometimes. Like when I went, “Do you love your momma?” and Natalie went, “Y-E-S” while stroking my cheek.

However, it’s not sweet when Natalie holds up her paper and points at the word no dramatically.

Soon she’ll be spelling more words which means Tom and I can no longer spell things when we don’t want her to know what we’re talking about.

C-R-A-P.