Oh Aloha sounds a nightmare of a day - they happen and they're so shitty.....but like you I don't think I'm making good enough use of bribes! I mean, I say 'come sit in Jo-Jo's car and you have the yellow taxi and the truck' and that works, or 'do you want to go sit on the step?!' which sometimes works. Until he says yes and goes to put himself on the step which renders me utterly pointless and powerless.
Reassuring there are others out there whose kids don't like ice cream. I bloody LOVE the stuff and Joe won't have a bar of it. He wants fruit or 'nacks' (snacks, preferably coming in a packet).
Ah which brings me on to interesting things - cause he was NICU baby we've had regular developmental checks at the hospital since discharge. Yesterday was his final 2yr old check and took nearly 90 mins of testing with the Paediatric Consultant. I have to say it was bloody hard sitting in that room with them and not burst out with 'HE CAN DO THAT HE KNOWS THAT!' every time he took a while to get something. Jeez.
Anyway I'm not sure if your kids are the same but J has some of his 'own' words for stuff - like wawa for yoghurt - and doesn't name a dog or cat or cow but does give their sound when he points to them, even though he knows what their proper name is. The paed consultant said his comprehension was 'sophisticated' but his language was 'immature'. Jeez. She asked him if he was a boy or a girl and I had to butt in and say, 'well, we've never actually talked to him about that, other than saying good boy type things'. She said now is a really crucial stage in development of their language pathways and so they need to lock in certain learnings around language and identity (!!) so we need to stop saying 'choo choo' when we mean train, and when we read books with him not point at things and say, 'what's that?' but rather say, 'what can you see?'. Shitenhousen. I'm taking it all with a grain of salt cause he's clearly not delayed as such but she said if his scores add up on the low end for spoken language then she'll refer him on.
I guess I consider any further referral a bonus, really, but he speaks the same as, and better than some of, his mates of the same age. It seems a bit OTT to be slamming home the boy:girl stuff, no? I think we'll stop using his words for things, even if he continues with them, and see how that goes for now.
Lord.