It’s Woo’s favourite word these days, his go to response when he doesn’t hear us, doesn’t understand, or just wants to acknowledge that we spoke to him. “What.  What? What!” I hear it more and more each day and have become acutely aware that it is not a passing phase.  Using more appropriate phrases as an example has not been enough, and I’ve been working on actively correcting him, offering alternatives like pardon me, yes, or can you please repeat that, but they haven’t taken hold.

It is not pleasant for me to be constantly reminding him not to  say it.  I get sick of hearing it, so I can only imagine how the rest of the family feels.  I am afraid this will be the language quirk that sticks, because it is the one that bugs me so.  There has got to be a better way to teach him not to do it, I just haven’t figured it out.

I was at a loss for where this was coming from.  Willy doesn’t say it, and I don’t rarely say it, and we both try our best to use polite alternatives to set an example.  I would assume that he senses my displeasure and plays on that, but he does it without thinking and when speaking to others.  Then Woo’s best bud came over for an afternoon on the weekend and it all became clear. He said “what” just the same way, but after everything that was said to him, regardless of whether he heard/understood.  My head exploded.