Playing with the whine

If our household was a business, we would be having high-level meetings about the whine "challenge." Since it is just us kicking around here, I'll call a spade a spade and say it - we've got a whine problem.

I'm aware that this is one of those things that presses my buttons...I have an extremely low tolerance for whining. I get annoyed, mad, frustrated -- the whole kit and caboodle. And I get many opportunities for this unpleasant reaction since it seems to be not that unusual for someone who is 28 months old to whine.

My two stand-by responses have been "I don't understand what you're saying" and "Please say that again in your regular voice."

So now on top of the whining, I'm bored by hearing myself say those things.

AND then came the MONSTER voice option!

LP has been delighting in talking in a monster voice (and we find it pretty darn funny) so now I ask her to repeat herself using that voice (or a butterfly voice or a snake voice or a dinosaur voice).

Two cool unexpected outcomes are 1) that it gives her some other options for communicating the emotion behind the whine and 2) I can answer her in a similar voice and join in some monster (or butterfly or snake or dinosaur) play.