"Hey guy!"

No, this isn't a desperate cry for attention from me - this would be my child's new favorite catch phrase. A few weeks ago during a visit to my brother's house for the twins' birthday I noticed that RP kept referring to both her aunt and her uncle as "Hey guy" when she was trying to get their attention. Giving her the benefit of the doubt (since she hadn't seen them in several weeks) I gently reminded her of the names of her aunt and uncle and let it pretty much pass.

YESTERDAY I noticed that my delightful little princess kept calling "Hey guy!" when she wanted to get my attention. I corrected her a handful of times and soon we were back to "Mommy" or Momma (or yes, even the dreaded "MOM!" - dreaded only because it sounds WAY too grown up for a two-year old) and life went on. Imagine my surprise (nay - horror!) that today when she was with her grandparents she kept referring to THEM as well as me (again!) as "Hey guy!"

I have no idea where this came from, but now RP either thinks it is funny or she is asserting control over calling us whatever pleases her. I reminded her (not so gently this time) that we all have NAMES and that she needs to use them to talk to us, but to no avail. At one point today she even summoned me by saying, "Hey guy - get my white pillow!" as she pointed upstairs toward her room. When I failed to follow her direction, she glared at me, repeated her "request," and jabbed the air in the direction of her room, while she settled back on the sofa looking oh-so very proud of herself. Needless to say, this was short-lived as not only did I NOT go upstairs and retrieve the pillow, but RP found herself in the naughty corner pondering what put her there and the proper way to address people.

Perhaps I am making too big a deal about this. I know a lot of what is going on right now is about control - she is becoming more independent and is eager to show this independence in everything she does. She wants to dress/undress herself, use the potty on her own (well, for the most part - and, yay for this one!), climb up into the van and buckle herself in, and dozens and dozens of other things. I also know I can be hard on her, and sometimes I am afraid that I am TOO hard on her, and that I spend so much time worrying about her discipline and development that I fail to truly enjoy what is going on right now and live for the moment. I told her time and time again today that calling someone "guy," especially when you know their name, is rude and disrespectful - clearly not necessarily concepts she can completely grasp yet. Hopefully we have ridden this out today and it won't be an issue tomorrow, but if so I think the game plan is changing to one of ignoring the request until she can address it properly.

I just hope I'm ready for whatever battle of wills is coming up next!