Silly Mom Thoughts

My three-year-old is a sponge, soaking up anything and everything that piques his interest. Sometimes I am caught of guard by his sponginess. He will repeat something that I said, or an action that he saw, when I thought he wasn’t even paying attention. The other day, for instance, he said out of nowhere, “It’s the night before Kissmas and all tru da house, not a criture was stuw-ing, not eben a mouse!” Needless to say, I was impressed.

Sometimes, though, he soaks up things I’d rather he didn’t. Like the other morning, when I was having my 5:25am tantrum I muttered the  “S” word under my breath when I was lifting up a child safety gate. The next morning, Bug walked up to the gate, grumbled, “Sit!” and stomped off.

Bug has a little friend who loves to add words to “head.” His favorite is “poophead.” Yesterday, this friend was over and soon after he left, Bug looked at me smiling and said, “Poophead!” I realized that he was testing this new cool word out and didn’t quite understand the meaning behind it, so I told him sternly to never say that word again, or he would be in trouble. I explained that it wasn’t a nice word to call someone at all.

Later that evening, the kids were in the tub and Bug looked at Bean and yelled, “Poophead!” Honestly, I think he thought it was a funny word, something that was more silly than insulting. But, I don’t want him going around saying that, so I plucked him out of the bath, wrapped him in a towel, and sent him off to time out.

He was crushed! Bath time is the happy hour of toddlers, something they look forward to after a long day of tantrums and being waited on hand and foot. When Mama takes away bath time, she means business.

After his time out sentence was served, he came back in to the bathroom and apologized to Bean and me. I put him in PJs and we watched Bean splash around in the bath for a while and he laughed at his silly little sister. That’s when he said it.

“You’re a-” he paused, thinking, and I prayed that he was not going to say the word he just got in trouble for saying, “Silly head!”

I was so proud. He sat and thought about the words before he said them. My punishment worked. I hugged him, kissed him, praised him for thinking before he spoke. I told him “silly head” is just fine, especially since our family is full of silly heads. The rest of the night, he giggled and called his sister a “Silly head” every time she was acting like a nut.

The only problem?

With Bug’s unique speech, “Silly head” actually sounds like, “Sh!t head.”

Oh well, it’s the true meaning that counts, right?