"Yesss!"

Three years ago, I pretty much married Scott for his nieces. I am the oldest by a lot in my family, so it was going to be awhile before my siblings had kids and I wanted to be an Aunt so so so bad.
His nieces were the CUTEST things I had ever seen, and they were also hilarious.

I now have three more nieces added to that pool, and I love hearing about the funny things they say.

Meet Charlotte. 

I know, right?

She's 3, and she's awesome. She has a 1 year old sister named Ruby, and for the sake of "awww," this is her:

As with all kids who are learning about this crazy world, Charlotte would sometimes have trouble doing what she was supposed to do. Maybe she wouldn't throw a tantrum about it, but she would... hesitate. My brother-in-law (Mark) and his wife (Heather) had this really great way of dealing with it: they would CHEER. As in, cheer her on.

I saw this in action once- Charlotte and Ruby were playing with some toys, and Charlotte needed to share. She was hesitating. You could tell she did NOT want to share, but she wasn't going to throw a big fit about it either. So Mark and Heather started being cheerleaders on the sidelines.

"YOU CAN DO IT CHARLOTTE! YOU CAN SHARE! WE KNOW YOU CAN DO IT! GO CHARLOTTE!"

So she smiled this proud little smile, and the she (very triumphantly) shared the toy with her sister, and Mark and Heather erupted into applause.

Then Mark made a fist and slowly pulled it down his chest whispering: "Yesss!"
And then Charlotte did the same thing.

I thought the whole thing was pretty awesome.

Mark and Heather told me that this is routine for them. They cheer Charlotte on to eat her vegetables, and then she does a celebratory slow-mo'-fist-pump "Yesss!" In fact, anytime Charlotte does something that's hard, she congratulates herself. "Yesss!"

But the best part is this:

Heather told me about how one day, she saw that Charlotte was making a poop face. She tried not to look at her- even with diapers, a girl needs her privacy. So Heather kept herself busy while Charlotte.. finished up. After a little while, Heather heard a little whisper of self congratulations:
"Yesss!"