Basta! (and basta loopholes)

Recently when Fiona got mad she would start yelling "basta" at us, which is Spanish for "enough!" We didn't like the way she acted when she yelled it--it was the toddler equivalent of cursing at her parents--so we started giving her time outs when she used the word.

After two time outs she figured out that she wasn't supposed to yell basta. So she tried whispering it. We gave her a time out for that one, too--we were trying to drive home the point that it wasn't a word she was ever supposed to use with her parents.

So now when Fiona gets mad (not temper tantrum mad, which is a different beast entirely) she stops herself and says "no say basta." And we nod and say "that's right, we don't say basta." Which does make us laugh--if basta is the toddler equivalent of cursing, "no say basta" is the toddler equivalent of a teenager figuring out how to slip the f-word into a conversation with her parents without getting in trouble.

Fiona's still tests us from time to time. A few nights ago I was finishing putting her pajamas on and she knew there was only another minute or so to bedtime. So she said "basta" to me, presumably figuring that we'd never give her a time out so close to bedtime. But since we're not going to really break her of the word without being consistent, we went ahead and left her in her room and closed the door. After a few minutes we came back in, read some stories, sang a song, and then left her in her room and closed the door. A lesson in how context can change even within 15 minutes.

We'll see what happens if she breaks the word out when we're out shopping. She's too young to get a delayed time out, so it may be that she winds up finding that loophole after all.