My toddler’s reasoning has really taken off. Everything is “Why?” Thus, I try, as the modern-doting mother that I am, to answer my toddler’s questions to the best of my ability.
I realized that approach, however, can backfire.
Being a boy, he is very interested in boy things. Cars, trucks, the remote control and yes, bodily functions. I believe it is ingrained into his very being. One day, when he..let’s say…passed gas, I told him that he did a “tootie”. Yet, I failed to explain what a tootie really was, as I soon realized he equated the act of tooting with either (a) an unpleasant smell or (b) the noise.
Thus, one day as we were out shopping and standing in a long checkout line, my stomach growled. My son, is his tootie-reasoning, loudly announced, “Mommy tootie’d!” I had to explain to him that the noise he heard was Mommy’s tummy, as Mommy was hungry, but not sure if the people behind me were buying it.
The next educational moment was when we were walking down the street. We smelled a foul odor wafting from a trash can. As we walked by, he yelled (as if I couldn’t hear standing next to him) “Mommy tootie’d!”
As this point, one may presume I have a major digestive problem.
As he continues to ask “Why” in everything, I now think more before I answer. As in, if I answer this question, how is it going to embarrass me the next time I go to the grocery store? Sadly, I think that, no matter how I answer his various questions, I have started the next chapter of my Mom life where I am constantly embarrassed by my toddler. However, I can look forward to the time when he’s a teenager and I can turn the tables on him. You know, when I pull out the baby book bathtub butt pictures.
{Hee Hee.}
So, how has your child embarrassed you?
