Pink Is the New Black

Or is it black is the new pink? I don't remember. I'm not up on my fashion statements.

Munchkin quickly picked up the term, "No"quite a while ago, but this week she has decided to add some non-verbal communication into the mix instead of just saying no. You might think that she would shake her head, or hold up a hand. Instead, she had decided to do something different.


Munchkin has decided that if she blinks at an incredibly slow rate (like three to four seconds for one blink) that she will be able to respectfully decline whatever you are offering or asking without having to tell you no. I was trying to give her a bite of yogurt. She has been wanting to feed herself with her own spoon (or sometimes by just diving a hand into the yogurt cup and sucking it off her cupped hand). We were in a bit of a hurry, so I tried to help her.

She responded by tucking her chin down to her chest, furrowing her brow, and blinking really slowly. I smiled and attempted to encourage her to eat the (slightly too) large bite from the spoon. And she repeated her reaction.

Now she does it all the time. If she sees someone who she doesn't know very well and they are trying to coax a smile from her, she blinks slowly. If she doesn't want to come over to you to get her diaper changed, she blinks slowly. If she doesn't like what you are saying, she blinks slowly.

It will be interesting to see how long it lasts. She is starting to learn new words, and enjoys babbling all the time, so it surprises me that she doesn't want to just use her words. "No," is one of the more frequent words in her vocabulary (surprise surprise for a fifteen month old). But for now, the slow blink is pretty entertaining.

The real headline should be Slow Blinks Are the New No.