I Quit!

There are many, many positive things that Cooper has learned thanks to his tv viewing. But I must not forget some of the negative things too. I just had to capture Cooper's need to "Quit" every once in awhile. It all started the beginning of July and I had no clue what he was saying. The first time I noticed him wanting to "Quit" something was when we attempted to ride Cody, the Pony. Out of nowhere he sat Indian style on the grass in the pony corral, folded his arms and exclaimed "I QUICK". It didn't register at the time that he was trying to say I quit. He has since changed the phrase to "I QUIT!!" This little outburst usually occurs when we ask him to do something he doesn't want to do but every once in awhile it surfaces when he's nervous or frustrated about something.

I blame this all on Ni Hao Kai-Lan, a show on Nick Jr. The show touches on expressing your feelings and to keep trying and never give up. The characters also teach him how to say various phrases in Chinese which Cooper is actually picking up on. Although he refers to it as "Chimese". The other day, he said "Xie Xie" to me when I gave him something to drink and it took me a minute to realize he was saying Thank-you in Chinese. Wow, that one kind of threw me for a loop.

Now on to the negative habit he's picked up from the show: Two of the main characters (stinkin' Ho Ho, the monkey and Tolee, the panda bear) usually end up quitting when they get frustrated about something and Kai-Lan encourages them to keep trying and not to give up. Cooper doesn't quite get the keep trying message. He definitely gets the quitting part. Mark and I now try really hard to make a big deal about Cooper quitting and tell him not to give up and to keep trying. We even skip the page in his Kai-Lan book where Tolee quits because he's "no good at rhyming". Cooper is totally on to us though and says I quit as we quickly turn that specific page. The damage has already been done. Damn you, Tolee the panda!!! You little quitter!!!

It's just so cute when Coop does it that it's hard not to laugh. It's quite contagious too. My Dad started "quitting" things while he was here and every once in awhile I have to refrain from exclaiming "I QUIT" when I'm in the middle of changing the 10th poopy diaper of the day.

This is just another example of the many Cooperism that I hope I never forget. Now if we could just focus on learning our colors in Chinese and Exnay on the IttingQuay.

Of course, I had to take a picture to capture a quitting outburst.

I Quit!