Please May I...

We've been trying to get the boys to go from speaking sentence fragments to full sentences. They do a decent job, I feel, with commonly heard gems such as "Oh, look at the helicopter." and "That's not bread, that's poop."¹, but the most elusive sentence seems to be "Please may I have ____." Here's how the situation typically unfolds.

» "Want cracker?"

« We ignore them in hopes that they'll figure out that they need to say "Please may I have a cracker."

» "Want cracker? Want cracker? ... Want cracker?! ... Want cracker?!!! Want cracker?!!?!"

« We give them a stern parental look.

» "Please cracker. Please want cracker."

« At this point we verbally encourage them to speak the full sentence: "No, that's not how do you say it."

» "Say please want cracker. Say please. Say pleeeeeease want cracker."

« Defeated thus far, we spell out exactly what we want them to say: "No, you say: Please, may I have a cracker?"

» "Say please may have a cracker?"

« "No...please may I have a cracker."

» "Say please have a cracker? Say please have a cracker."

« "Don't say 'say', just: Please, may I have a cracker?"

» "Say please cracker. Please cracker."

« After a few more minutes of similar conversation, we give up and go get them a cracker.

The funny thing, though, is that the boys can say this sentence flawlessly whenever they're talking to each other. The other night before bed, Caleb was drinking some water. Joshua goes up to him and asks "Caleb, please may I have the water?"

¹ The phrase "That's not bread, that's poop." is spoken by the twins to each other when we're changing their diapers. They've also created variations such as "That's not meat, that's poop." and "That's not cheese, that's poop." My favorite variation, however, is when Joshua uttered "That's not Joshua, that's poop." We laughed a while over that one.