A – Z Blogging Challenge, Raising Boys: The Penis Chronicles presents the Letter W for What did he say?

I warred with myself on this title. It was a toss-up between “What did he say?” and “Why do we teach them to speak?”

I am sure at some point we have all heard swearwords coming out of a toddler’s mouth. In my experience they usually get the context correct when they utter those foul words. At around 3 years old my older boy tripped and fell; he landed on his bottom and his prompt response was, “Fuck!”

Another reoccurring episode in my house, that some people find amusing, involves the 3 year old who has no problem sharing his potty-mouth versus my 6 year old who just won’t swear. So, the younger boy yells at the older boy, “ASS.” The older boy responds by yelling back, “I am not an A. S. S.” So, I have one yelling the word and the other spelling it! Good grief.

When one of my boys was 2, I was changing his poopy diaper and he pointed at his little bum and stated, “Eat this.” Seriously, where do they come up with stuff?

Some of these “What did he say?” moments that made me scratch my head or plunge my finger into my ear to see if I could dig out whatever must be distorting my hearing are as follows:

1. At 3 to 3 ½ years older the boy says to me, “You wanna play games? I can handle it.”
2. “Why does milk come from a cow’s penis?” What followed was a discussion on cows utters.
3. At about 6 ½ years old my son is getting out of the bath and his hands have gone all wrinkly from his time spent playing in the bath water. His voice is raised and full of shock as he says, “My hands got old!”
4. I say to the 3 year old, “That is not what you do with your man parts, you don’t wiggle them at people.” My older boy chips in and states, “That’s right, but we can wiggle it at ourselves.”
5. The boys are out playing in the sprinkler, the grass has been freshly cut. They are having fun. It is hours later before I notice a bug bit just above my 3 year old’s bum cheek. I am surprised by the size of the bump and I ask him, “What bit your bum?” He turns and looks at me with an expression of shear dismay and states, “A t-rex bit it.” He then closes his eyes, scrunches up his face, and nods as if reliving the pain.
6. “Mom my penis is stuck to my leg.”
7. My one son has an interesting way of referring to something that happened in the past whether it is five minutes ago or a week. Whatever it is he is describing happened, “Last week ago.”
8. The 3 year old turned the word fuck into a rhythmic one word song that he blasts from the backseat in the truck (this issue has been corrected).
9. “Stop it you fool.”
10. “I ate a booger, haha.”
11. “Does piglet have a penis?”
12. My 6 year old is talking to me about what his future plans are and he starts off with these words, “Next year when I’m a dad…”
13. It is February. The boys says, “I’m not having a bath till Christmas.”

There are also those spoken things that only mom can translate:
Toop = poop
ci-man = spiderman
h, i, j, k’s = the alphabet
dankie = blanket
dink = drink

As a mom I can translate child speak without skipping a beat while anyone else listening scrunches up their foreheads in intense concentration; mom can answer automatically from 3 rooms away with a firm yes or no. I can only wonder why some of those less desirable things that come out of those little mouths come out so clear when it would be best suited for those things to need translation.

By Shari Marshall – written for April 27, 2017