Affirmative

Tucker has been signing "please" for several weeks.  Now he says "yes" while he signs.  Yes, please.

When we ask whether he'd like more peanut butter his sweet reply is irresistible.
When we check to see if he'd like to go down the slide again his polite confirmation sounds like poetry.
When we inquire about music or dance his favorable response is as seductive as an exotic accent.

Sometimes his hand flaps at the side of his chest, slightly missing the mark, and his "yes" is clipped and hurried, a let's-get-on-with-it insistence that, well, of course he wants to play in the bathtub.  Other times his fist is closed and his motions smooth, but his voice is breathier, a result of the effort required to walk and talk at the same time.  But always, always his "yes, please" makes us smile.  Big from-the-inside-out smiles. 
 

And always, almost always, his "yes, please" is cogent.  We know that we have to be careful not to spoil Tucker.  There are things that we don't let him do.  Like jump off the front porch and chew on the blender blade.  (Interestingly, these are not things he has "yes, please"ed for our permission before trying, but had he, we'd have said "no".  Of course we will say no.  Sometimes.  Probably not often enough.) 
But he saves us from wishing our own lives would speed by so we could, someday, hopefully, catch up with her.  We feel graced by his presence, spoiled to share life with him.  His "yes, please"es - and our reactions to them - are affirmation that the part about not spoiling him is not going to come easy. 
JEB