We aren’t PC. It’s not how we roll. We most often call things as they are and never think twice.
So, butts are butts. Not hineys or bums or tushes or behinds or bottoms or backsides. It’s not scandalous to the kids because this is how it’s always been. Not scandalous any more than any other potty talk normal kids do normally.
Normal kids laugh about the body, right?
And it’s fine with me, for the most part. But the line has to be drawn somewhere and currently Ellie has crossed it.
She’s obsessed. It’s ALL about the butts at the moment. I’m not sure when it began or how it started, but suddenly it was her favorite topic at the table (the line! NOT, for the love of Pete!, at the table!) and the subject of spontaneous songs and dances. Then, it turns out, the baseballs that were drawn all over the chalkboard were not, in fact, baseballs at all but BUTTS.
“Uh. . . sorry, but that’s a baseball.” Jac said mustering all of his stoicism while I choked back laughter into the dish water.
“Ellie says they’re butts.” Max insisted. “See? A butt pooping, a butt sitting, a butt . . . ”
“Well, they look like baseballs. Don’t draw butts on my wall, Ellie.”
” ‘Kay.”
Then Max, ever-so-helpful, “If you just did one line like this then it’d look more like a -”
“NOT ON THE WALL!”
Does that mean anywhere else is okay?
At the library, I was stuffing the stack of books into the bag and saw an odd looking book. “Where’s My Tushy?” was it’s title. I paused and then looked at my five-year-old beauty serenely reading a princess story and knew it was one of her choices. Tess came up then and noticed the book in my hands. “Wait. Who got that?” “Who do you think?” I asked. “Ellie?”
This same conversation happened again as Max scanned the books at checkout and once more when Philip was perusing the titles on the way home. Both were incredulous that I not only knew that she had chosen such a work but that I had approved it.
“I don’t think it’s very appropriate,” I heard Philip mutter to himself. It’s a good thing we have those boys around to keep us all in line.
The book is ridiculous and cute with it’s rhyming story of butts who go on vacation because they feel under valued. The hiatus is short lived and all ends well. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the same holds true for this latest fixation.
