At age two and a half, Alexis is still working on her mastery of pronouns. She has finally figured out that not everyone is a "she" (you wouldn't believe how many men get their panties in a bunch when a toddler refers to them as a "she," btw). She's definitely got "me" and "mine" down like any greedy little toddler should. What she hasn't totally figured out yet is the difference between "your" and "our."

I suppose in part her confusion is due to the vast differences in how things are pronounced around here. I spent my entire college career working very hard to lose any and all of my North Dakota accent. (Ever watched the movie Fargo? Yeah, I used to sound like that.) It still comes out once in a while when I'm wound up, but mostly I am devoid of accent. Anybody who says otherwise is just looking to get punched.

Mr. Husband, on the other hand, is a Hoosier through and through. He has all kinds of little quirky pronunciations. For what it's worth, I declare him WRONG in all instances. Don't even get me started on the "how many syllables does crayon have?" debate. (It has TWO, dangnabit!)

Then there are the teachers at daycare, where the poor child is exposed to more than her fair share of Yinzer-speak. I don't even understand the Yinzers when they break into their hard-core Pittsburgh accents. Anyway, I know for a fact that the people in her life do not all pronounce "your" and "our" all that correctly and distinctly.

So, the other night Alexis and I were driving through the neighborhood on our way to the house. She was telling me that we were going to her house, I was saying we were going to our house, and we were just generally debating the whole thing.

Alexis: Are we going to my house?
Me: We're going home to our house.
Alexis: We're going to my house!
Me: No, it's our house.
Alexis: My house.
Me: It's not your house, it's our house.
Alexis: Yes, it's MY house.

And on and on. I tried to explain that she, Daddy, and I all live there so it is "our" house but she was having none of it. Finally, I decided that if she wants to be a possessive little toddler, she should take some responsibility with it. So, I said, "Well, since it's your house, I think you should clean it."

Her response? "No, it's not my house."

I'm pretty sure the list of reasons to have a kid included having someone to do a little toilet scrubbing and window washing. This is SO not going as planned.

*****************************************************************************
I'm still working through all the contest entries and will post the winners on October 2nd by 10:00 pm Eastern Time, but I needed to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who stopped by on September 30th. Thanks to the 87 (87!!!!) links from all corners of the Internet, I had over 3500 pages views that one day. For a tiny little mommy blog? That's INCREDIBLE! Thank you all so much, and I'll share the totals raised and all that along with the winners' names tomorrow.

Y'all? Are freakin' amazing. I can't thank you enough for your help.