I was just teaching Sophie how to shake hands, and I was trying to get her to say "Pleased to meet you" when she shook my hand. She was concentrating hard, and tried to say it, but it came out "Pleased to eat oatmeal", which I think is a vast improvement. It bypasses the whole politeness-for-politeness's-sake thing, and really tells the other person something about you (which is perfectly true in Sophie's case, her grandpa got her into oatmeal over the holidays, and she now wolfs down two servings and asks for more).
The next steps will be:
a) get her to stop shaking hands - she finishes with one, then demands the other hand, gives it a good shaking, then wants the first one back again, etc., etc., until you impolitely pull away from her or yell "that's quite enough hand shaking!" - and then she just grins and says "oatmeal"
b) get her to stop pulling the person close during the handshake and sneezing all over their face
After that, we're ready for the Miss Manners competitions.
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