I took candy from a baby today. It's not nearly as easy as you might think.
This happened at the park, where a bunch of mothers and kids were hanging out and enjoying the sun. Taking candy from the baby wasn't the interesting part - sure, it earned me a good 20 minutes of pouting and whimpering from Baby S, and she did eventually get smart and pretend to be playing only to dive for my purse when she thought I wasn't looking (why is it that every time I notice my kids doing something really smart, really advanced for their age, it's somehow connected to stealing from me?) - but it wasn't embarrassing, and I know some of you want to hear the good stories, the ones where karma comes to give me a good swift metaphorical kick in the shins that's been 20 years in the offing.
So here's that story:
I'm sitting there next to another mom from the daycare when her 3-year-old walks up and says, "Mommy, do you like to eat poop?"
Now, I know where this is coming from, so I suddenly develop an interest in a nearby magazine as she says, "What?! Honey! We don't use words like that! Who did you hear that from?" But I wasn't so interested that I didn't hear him say, "Dani said it."
Unfortunately, I'm nowhere near good enough an actress to pull off a, "What? Dani? Oh, there must be some confusion," so I ended up mumbling, "Uhh... yeah, that sounds like something she'd say." Of course it would have been hard to deny anyway, what with her standing just a few feet away waving her chocolate lollipop around announcing, "This is poop! It is tasty!"
It's really not Dani's fault. It was her older sisters who started the whole chocolate-is-poop thing. For a while now if I give them bread with some chocolate spread as a treat, they grab it, then one of them opens hers up, looks inside, and shouts, "My sandwich has POOP!" And then they roll around laughing hysterically, because poop jokes just never ever get old. Not even when you tell the same joke 50 times every single time I make the sandwiches. Nope.
It's a whole set of terms now. I won't get too into it here, what with this being a family blog. Suffice to say, if you ever hear my four-year-old saying, "I don't like to eat penis. I like to eat poop," what she means is that she prefers chocolate spread to jelly.
Anyway, this is all very exciting for Dani, because for once she's in on the joke. She can scream, "Poop! Poop in my sandwich!" with the best of them.
I did have a talk with them about how certain words are Bathroom Words, and we only use those words about actual bodily functions, and it's really not nice to use them around guests or at daycare or when there are social workers around. Adi looked at me warily and nodded - Adi always gives me a wary look and nods when I have A Serious Talk with her, even if she's simultaneously devising a plan to do exactly what I'm telling her not to do - N said "uh-huh," and Dani said, "You're poopy!"
So... mixed results, there.
I think I'll send them to daycare with egg salad sandwiches tomorrow. I'm pretty sure they don't have a word for that one yet.
PS - my apologies to anyone who found this post through a google search and was looking for something very, very different.
PPS - my apologies also to parents of boys, if you still had illusions that if you have some female children next you could catch a break from the potty humor.
This happened at the park, where a bunch of mothers and kids were hanging out and enjoying the sun. Taking candy from the baby wasn't the interesting part - sure, it earned me a good 20 minutes of pouting and whimpering from Baby S, and she did eventually get smart and pretend to be playing only to dive for my purse when she thought I wasn't looking (why is it that every time I notice my kids doing something really smart, really advanced for their age, it's somehow connected to stealing from me?) - but it wasn't embarrassing, and I know some of you want to hear the good stories, the ones where karma comes to give me a good swift metaphorical kick in the shins that's been 20 years in the offing.
So here's that story:
I'm sitting there next to another mom from the daycare when her 3-year-old walks up and says, "Mommy, do you like to eat poop?"
Now, I know where this is coming from, so I suddenly develop an interest in a nearby magazine as she says, "What?! Honey! We don't use words like that! Who did you hear that from?" But I wasn't so interested that I didn't hear him say, "Dani said it."
Unfortunately, I'm nowhere near good enough an actress to pull off a, "What? Dani? Oh, there must be some confusion," so I ended up mumbling, "Uhh... yeah, that sounds like something she'd say." Of course it would have been hard to deny anyway, what with her standing just a few feet away waving her chocolate lollipop around announcing, "This is poop! It is tasty!"
It's really not Dani's fault. It was her older sisters who started the whole chocolate-is-poop thing. For a while now if I give them bread with some chocolate spread as a treat, they grab it, then one of them opens hers up, looks inside, and shouts, "My sandwich has POOP!" And then they roll around laughing hysterically, because poop jokes just never ever get old. Not even when you tell the same joke 50 times every single time I make the sandwiches. Nope.
It's a whole set of terms now. I won't get too into it here, what with this being a family blog. Suffice to say, if you ever hear my four-year-old saying, "I don't like to eat penis. I like to eat poop," what she means is that she prefers chocolate spread to jelly.
Anyway, this is all very exciting for Dani, because for once she's in on the joke. She can scream, "Poop! Poop in my sandwich!" with the best of them.
I did have a talk with them about how certain words are Bathroom Words, and we only use those words about actual bodily functions, and it's really not nice to use them around guests or at daycare or when there are social workers around. Adi looked at me warily and nodded - Adi always gives me a wary look and nods when I have A Serious Talk with her, even if she's simultaneously devising a plan to do exactly what I'm telling her not to do - N said "uh-huh," and Dani said, "You're poopy!"
So... mixed results, there.
I think I'll send them to daycare with egg salad sandwiches tomorrow. I'm pretty sure they don't have a word for that one yet.
PS - my apologies to anyone who found this post through a google search and was looking for something very, very different.
PPS - my apologies also to parents of boys, if you still had illusions that if you have some female children next you could catch a break from the potty humor.
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