Yuck, Yuck, Yuck

Yuck Yuck Yuck

A couple weeks ago, I went in to get the little one out of the crib after naptime, and instead of her usual smile and squeal of excitement at my arrival, I got an outstretched hand, a crinkled nose and a clear, “Yuck!” From the smell in the room, I knew she had a problem during naptime, and even though we cleaned it up with surprisingly little effort, she was still horrified. The entire rest of the afternoon, everything was “Yuck!” From truly disgusting things like poop in the yard, to a benign scrap of paper on the floor, she exclaimed with the same intonation, “Yuck!”

I began to have visions of her growing up to be obsessed with clean, everything in rows and perfectly organized, not being able to tolerate the everyday imperfections of our world. I decided, “We need to draw this ‘Yuck’ category very tightly.” However, in spite of my concerted efforts to downplay her exclamations, explaining that, no, that wasn’t yuck, it was just this or that, she would have none of it. She had decided what yuck was, enjoyed the drama of it, and continued her word-play with disgusted pleasure.

I think redrawing this category is going to take quite a bit of time, effort and patience.

For more on drawing categories for kids, see http://ourwordshop.blogspot.com/2007/10/line-drawings-drawing-categories-for.html