Katherine is slowly but surely improving her communication.
She can understand basic things. Like, “Time to go,” she’ll run over to the back door (and then to the van if possible). If you ask her if she needs her diaper changed, she’ll toddle over to the downstairs diaper station (i.e., the dryer).
She can understand a lot more than she can express — which I suppose can be terribly frustrating for her. She does have the violent head-shaking “No!” down — though she changes her mind often enough that it cannot be taken as a definitive answer. And she’s learned to climb into her high chair when she wants to eat, to climb into her stroller when she wants a walk, and to drag folks by the finger if need be to take them to where she wants them to be.
Sometimes we are the ones reduced to monosyllabic grunts. Most of which sound like, coincidentally, “No!”