Who da man?

About 6 months ago is when Ben stopped saying “Iname!” pronounced eye-na-mee. At least I think that’s how it’s pronounced, no-one knows for sure really. He used to say it whenever he got in trouble. After you would tell him that he’s not allowed to do whatever he was doing he would yell “Iname!” to voice his protest at being corrected. What he meant by it is anyone’s guess. He could have been trying to say “Be nice to me!”, or it did sound a little like “I’m the man!”. Sometimes Doug or I would argue with him. This is how it would go.

“Ben get down from there.”

“Iname!”

“No, I’m the man.”

Even more emphatically “INAME!”

“No, I’m the man.”

“INAMEEE!!!”

We still don’t know what it meant, and now that he’s a little easier to understand, he’s given up on trying to say whatever it was that he was saying. Maybe he thinks that we finally got the point.

His new thing is to look you dead in the eye, with a perfectly straight look on his face, and the he shakes his head really fast, but very subtly. The movement is so small that you can barely notice it. It’s kind of like he’s shivering. Apparently in his world this is a good way to voice displeasure, and in a way he’s right, but that’s my fault. See, instead of chastising him like I would for having a verbal outburst or for hitting something, I laugh at him. Yes, I laugh. I can’t help it. I try to keep a straight face. I even try to pretend that the face shaking makes me angry, but in the end I burst out with laughter, and then he laughs, and we’re both laughing, and I’m saying to him “Wait, aren’t you supposed to be in trouble?”