I Nee Go

It started out as a success. Mia learned to say "I need to go pee" -- which, coming from her, sounds like "I nee go peezit" ("peezit" is the Russian version of "pee").

But this little success quickly went to her stubborn little head, and she decided that "I nee go" meant "I want". Hence phrases like "I nee go orange juice", or "I nee go more". This was cute, for a while.

Quick Russian lesson: In Russian, if you want to say "I DON'T want to eat", you say "I nee want to eat". Well, not really. But you get the idea -- "don't" translates to "nee".

So, apparently because Mia's version of the word "need" sounds like "nee" as in "don't", at some point she started translating "I nee go..." as "I DON'T want...". You can imagine our consternation. Now we have no friggin' idea what she wants, until she starts screaming. And oh, boy, can she scream.

So we're trying to train her to say "I want..." or "may I have..." or "I don't want..." at the appropriate times. But what our daughter lacks in willingness she makes up for in stubbornness. And, to make matters worse, "I nee go..." happens to be Mia's favorite and most useful phrase. Every 10 seconds, I swear.

Yesterday, nearing my frustration level but still maintaining a sense of humor, I turned around and said to Mia "Mia, if you say 'I nee go' one more time in the next ten seconds, I'm gonna strangle you!" It took about 7 seconds