You say tomato, I say butt

I had to go to “time out” three times the other night. You’d figure that for my wide vocabulary of curse words, almost curse words, and words so vulgar that I won’t even say I would have had to go to time out for something pretty good. Nope. Not me.

I said “butt.”

It started a few weeks ago while Carol and I were putting Ben to bed. Normally we’ll each read him a book, give him a kiss, and tell him “sweet dreams” as we turn out the light. During this exchange he will tell each of us good night mommy and daddy respectively, and then he goes to bed. Well, on this given night he decided to replace “mommy” with “stupid butt” (does that get hyphenated?).

We weren’t quite sure that we heard what we thought we had heard, so we asked him to repeat it. It quickly became obvious that he knew what he had said was wrong as he was hesitant to repeat it. We asked him again and he said “good night stupid butt”. It took all we had to keep from laughing, but we (mostly) held our composure and told him that we don’t say either of those words. He said he had learned it at school so we gave him alternative words to say, like bottom, or hiney, or keister, or whatever, just not butt.

Since that night, Ben has said “butt” a few more times and each time we’ve sent him to sit in time out. He now understands that we don’t say that word and has even gotten to the point where if Carol or I say something that even rhymes with “butt”, he tells us “No, you say bottom”. It’s pretty cute but getting to be a big pain in MY butt.

You see, I have a potty mouth. It’s not overly vulgar or anything, but I curse. In fact, I curse fairly often. I’m not one of those people who drops the f-bomb 4 times every sentence due to laziness or a lack of vocabulary, but if the situation calls for it, I will cuss. In fact, I’m pretty good at it. My challenge comes when I’m at the house around Ben and the need to curse arises and I quickly have to think of alternative words. “Freaking” and “farging” have now entered my vocabulary as extremely viable options.

For the longest time, I’ve considered “butt” to be a very viable option as well. Without thought, I’ve been saying it at work and around kids forever, very thankful that I didn’t say the other thing. I thought I was doing a good job. Well, I did a “good job” the other night three times. Each time Ben caught me, told me “No, you say bottom. You go to time out”, and each time I had to go to the hallway, sit against the wall, and wait for him to come over and excuse me. I guess it’s good because it shows that he’s learning and he hasn’t said “butt” in quite a while. But I’m getting a little sick of sitting in time out. Is it sad that I now have to sit in time out more than my 3 year old son? Has the student surpassed the teacher?

The thing is, I don’t know what’s more pathetic: the sight of a grown man crunched down in a very small hallway to serve the time out imposed by his three year old son or the fact that that same grown man’s three year old son has figured out sooner than I have how to avoid time out. I’m doomed.

Daddy

I am the proud father of a 3 year old son whose job it is to put everything I have ever known (or at least thought I’d known) to the test. He is adorable, very smart, polite, conscientious, and absolutely hysterical. You would think that would be a good thing, right? Well, most of the time it is – except for when he misbehaves.

As with every aspect of raising a child there are mishaps and blunders, but you roll with it and try to build on what you’ve already accomplished. You expect the occasional accident. You expect to have your patience tried. And, you expect that once you put your sweet child to bed and kiss him goodnight that when you go to the kitchen there will be a nice cold beer awaiting you in the fridge as a kind of merit badge for making it through the day.

What you don’t expect, however, are their reactions when you discipline them. My wife and I have decided that our form of discipline will be sitting the boy (as he is affectionately called in our home) down and talking to him about what he’s done. The boy, however, makes this very difficult. The other night, for instance, I came into the living room and found him with a red pen. It seems the sweet little guy had drawn me a picture. Unfortunately, that picture was drawn on our beige couch. I sat him down, talked to him about using crayons, pens, markers, and paints on paper only, and he seemed to understand and be okay with it. I told him I was not happy and that seemed to send the point home. For the next ten minutes, he would repeatedly look at me with a sad face and say “you happy now”. It was so cute but I was upset and wanted to let him know that what he did was wrong, so I responded with “I’m getting there.”

It was at that point where the boy, mustering up all of the cuteness and politeness that I mentioned before, decided to bring me a card that my wife’s aunt had sent to her for her birthday. He handed it to me as if he had gone out to the store, bought it himself for this exact occasion, and with the sweetest eyes, said “I sorry Daddy” and gave me a hug. What? How does he know how to do that? I didn’t learn that trick until well into my dating career. He’s picked it up at three?

Either way, at that point all had been forgiven. The funny thing is, it wasn’t the card, it wasn’t the sweet expression on his face, and it wasn’t the fact that I had decided that his “punishment” was over. It wasn’t even that the upholstery cleaner was able to clean up the mess. All he needed to do was call me that one name that has changed everything.

Daddy.

I’m going to be in trouble.