Recently, Annika has started making chicken sounds. She’s actually really good at making realistic sounding chicken sounds, which is why I think she likes to do it. Sometimes, when I ask her a question, all she’ll do is look at me and say “Bock ba-gock!” over and over.

At some point, it was driving me crazy, and I finally gave her a limit: you get to ba-gock at me 5 times a day. That’s it.

She was a little disappointed, but took it to heart. Now, when she bocks, I say “that’s one.” And she nods with understanding. The other day, she made a very small “buck” and I said “that’s three” and she argued with me until I made the small sound only worth 1/2 of a ba-gock.

I think she is working on rationing her ba-gocks for good moments. For example, she was hiding out in a little fort she had built and I didn’t realize she was there until I was walking right past it and she yelled BA-GOCK. Then she giggled.

The other day, she had used all of her ba-gocks up by the time we were reading her book together, and in the chapter, there was a chicken (the book took place on a farm). She looked pained, then like she was straining. Finally, she asked, softly, “…can I?”

How could I say no? Buh-gock!

Some of you are probably thinking, “wow, it can’t be THAT bad. What a mean mom.” If that’s you, you are wrong. It’s fine for a bit, but try asking someone to do something and all they respond with is ba-gock. “How was your day?” “Bock buck bock!” Every day. For days. Five ba-gocks is very generous.

I know she’ll grow out of it and I’ll look back at it fondly, like when Anders went through his jump-scare phase and I had to limit him to three scares per day (because I HATE to be startled by someone jumping out from around a corner or something like that). Looking back, that was pretty funny and this is too.

But for now? Five a day.