1 year and 9 months old. My son's all-out negotiation tactics when he can't say 'Please give me ice cream'

My 1-year-and-9-month-old son has recently seen a sudden increase in his vocabulary.

When he finds the moon in the night sky, he points at it and says,

👶 "Moon, moon!"

Then he looks at me and says,

👶 "Mama! Mama!"

telling me with all his might.

He can't have a real conversation yet. Even so, he has started trying his best to tell me about the things he finds and the things he feels.

"Ah, I'm really communicating with him now."

The moments I feel that way are increasing, and it's unbearably cute.

There is one thing that worries me about my son, though.

He doesn't really want to eat his meals.

He wants to eat. But he doesn't want to swallow.

Before a meal, he properly says "itadakimasu" (let's eat).

He stuffs his mouth full of food and chews it happily.

Up to this point, it's perfect.

However, after a while, he spits it all out.

He eats things he likes, but as soon as he gets a little full, finds something else he wants to eat, or thinks "this isn't quite right," he spits it out immediately.

It doesn't seem like he has "no desire to eat."

In fact, he wants to put food in his mouth. He has the desire to eat. But I'm not sure how much actually makes it into his stomach.

At daycare, the teachers try to make it easier for him by putting one bite at a time on a small spoon. Even then, it seems he sometimes spits it out if it's not to his taste.

That is why my son is quite slim.

It is within the range of normal growth, and he has plenty of energy. For now, I am watching over him, thinking there is no need to worry excessively.

Even so, my son is usually hungry when he comes home from daycare.

Probably, extremely so.

I thought he was satisfied because he had eaten his bento.

One day during summer vacation, I went to watch my older child's soccer practice.

When I took out the bento for my older child before practice, my son noticed it immediately and said,

👶 "Mama! Mama!"

appealing for me to give him a bento too.

Of course, I had prepared one for my son as well.

He put a lot in his mouth, ate a little, and spilled a little. He put more in his mouth, and this time, he spit it out.

He repeated that for about 30 minutes.

He finished with some jelly, so I thought, "He must be satisfied now," and ended the meal.

However, while watching the soccer practice, he wanted the juice I had bought from a vending machine.

This is a common occurrence.

He wants to drink whatever someone else is drinking. So, I didn't pay much attention to it at the time.

The problem was what happened after that.

My son, who spotted a boy holding ice cream,...

Some strangers walked by, eating ice cream while walking.

My son probably doesn't even know yet that the food is called "ice cream".

However, he clearly understood that the older boys were eating something delicious.

The next moment, my son ran toward the older boys.

Then, he pointed to a chair nearby.

In our house, whenever we eat something, we always tell our son this.

👩 'Sit here.'

So, while pointing at the chair, my son was saying something. I think he was probably telling the older boys the same thing.

👶 'Sit here.'

Of course, the older boys didn't sit down.

Then, my son sat down on the chair himself.

Seeing that, I finally realized.

👩 'Oh, this... maybe he's trying to say, "Please give me ice cream."'

If he sits in the chair, the older boys will come over too.

If they come over, he might get them to share that delicious-looking treat.

I wonder if he was trying to negotiate in his own way, mobilizing all the words and rules he knows.

However, the older boys, not noticing my son's negotiation, just walked on by.

Then my son hurriedly got off the chair and started chasing after the older boys.

His back, no matter how you looked at it, was saying,

👶 'Why? Why won't you give me ice cream?'

That's what he was saying.

I also hurriedly chased after them, picked up my son, and brought him back.

My son going to ask a stranger for their ice cream.

👩 "Wait a minute. You're clearly hungry. You haven't had nearly enough to eat. You wanted it that much, huh?"

Feeling both apologetic and amused by his incredibly confident negotiation, I almost burst out laughing.

"I won't eat" and "I don't want to eat" were not the same thing

I went home and made rice balls for my older child.

Then my son hurried over and sat down neatly on the chair in front of the table.

👶 "I want a rice ball too."

That is what he seemed to be saying.

He reached out from beside me while I was making the rice balls, grabbed one that was finished, and started munching away.

Of course, he couldn't eat it all perfectly.

He spilled some, and sometimes he would spit it out.

Even so, the desire to eat was definitely there.

👩 "You were hungry, weren't you?"

When my older child started eating jelly, my son called out to me again.

👶 "Mama! Mama!"

He still can't say, "I want jelly too."

But by using his voice, pointing, his gaze, and his actions, my son is clearly communicating his feelings.

I realized that before I knew it, I had been focusing only on "visible results"—how much he ate, how much he swallowed, how much he spilled, whether he was too thin—and so on.

But inside my son, there is a genuine "want to eat."

It's just that there are days when he can't eat it well.

What he wants to eat changes from time to time.

And because he cannot put it into words, he tries to convey it using his whole body.

Even before they can speak, children are saying so much

Just because a child has few words does not mean they have little to say.

Pointing at a chair.

Sitting there on his own.

Chasing after people passing by.

Calling out 'Mama!' over and over.

I think each one of those things is a perfectly valid word for my son.

It is not that I, as an adult, can understand all of it correctly.

I might think, 'He must be full,' only to find he was hungry enough to try and get ice cream from a stranger.

We still miss each other's meaning sometimes.

Even so, my son does not give up on communicating.

I am sure that today, too, he will mobilize all the words and gestures he knows to tell me something.

That is why I want to keep watching him closely.

By the way, my son's negotiation tactic of offering a chair to a stranger holding ice cream, then sitting there himself to wait for a share, is quite something.

I wonder what will happen once he can speak clearly.

I am looking forward to it a little, and I am a little scared.