The baby is down for her afternoon nap, and I am trying to get some work done plus do laundry plus dishes plus never-ending cleaning plus I haven’t even thought about dinner yet… so this semi-lazy mum has her five year old boy propped in front of his favorite car-driving video game, just to glean a few moments of peace. I know, I know. I’m a terrible mother.
Before we had the children, I worked from home in near-silence all the time, save for the classic rock radio tunes playing in the background. I often miss that time, being able to do my activities and all my good thinking inside my head, without all this chatter. Whenever I needed conversation, I would seek it, and once full of it, I could go back to my quiet life. Sometimes I cannot get over how much noisy rabble can come out of such little people. And it is constant. I let them stay because they make for gorgeous accessories.
Though he is blessedly not running amok in the house, he IS constantly talking, Talking, TALKING to me, even though I remind him about four hundred times to please, PLEASE use his computer quietly while I use mine. He’s often a chatty kid. In fact, I believe he is the most talkingest child I’ve ever heard. Still, he is only but a little boy, the sweet darling, and I know one day all this chatter will end, likely in seven or eight years, and I will be heartbroken and pining for these days… besides, it’s only polite to at least answer the child, especially when he’s asking me questions like this:
“Uh, mummy? What’s a turd?”
“Pardon me, love?”
“What’s a tuuuurd?”
I bite the inside of my lip to keep from smirking. I’m thankful his back is facing me, so I can hide my amusement.
“What do you mean? Use it in a sentence.”
“I heard this teenager girl say to some other teenager kid, You’re such a fucking turd and so I don’t know what a turd is. What is it?”
Ho! Jeez. An F-bomb in the middle of the afternoon. His pre-school is housed within a local high school, so it is not unusual for him to get an earful or an eyeful of interesting tidbits to mull over while en route now and again. Based on his description, I’m not sure if he heard turd or ‘tard, but I’m not going to open that can of worms. I think the former warrants far less explanation anyway. I decide to ignore the F-bomb part altogether.
“Well, uh… a turd is a small piece of poo.”
He shoots around to look at me carefully. He doesn’t believe me (though I almost never lie to him… almost) and his eyebrows are knit together in all his five-year-old seriousness.
“Really?”
“Yes. Poo.” I’m busily working away, pretending this is the most normal conversation in the world. And it is.
“Reeeally?!” His eyebrows have risen, and he is grinning, all wild-eyed now.
“Yes.” I type and type, and try not to type the word “turd” by mistake.
“No really, mummy. Seriously now. For serious. Turd means poo? Like poop? Like bathroom poop?!” His mouth is open and ready to explode with laughter.
“Yes. Is there any other kind?”
Naturally, he is collapsing in a fit of giggles now, and he has the most infectious laugh you’ve ever heard – no joke. I’ve watched people in banks, waiting rooms, public libraries, and public washrooms catch a hard case of the giggles when this kid starts laughing. I try my hardest to remain straight-faced, but he’s clutching his sides with laughter, nearly falling off the chair, interjecting “turd” in between guffaws, and I can’t help but turn my face to the window and bite my lip harder. My hand is over my mouth, and I’m suppressing some serious laughter too. Just as things begin to ebb, he says “turd” to himself, and the laugh-riot begins anew. Close to two full minutes of side-splitting hilarity.
I pull myself together. The last time we had a conversation like this, the word was “douche” and I felt like I was walking through a minefield. Douche is by far one of my favorite words – it just sounds so wonderfully bad and dirty and wrong, and has a myriad of cool uses – but explaining just the literal meaning and not, say, the fine nuances of douchebaggery, or trying to explain why a statement like, “Josh Groban is such a douche” is so funny, especially between my wicked sister and I… well, it was just too much for me to take without laughing my own guts out. I think he randomly threw in the word “douche” during conversations for days after that, trying to get me to laugh. It kinda did. I’m a bad mum. He appears to have forgotten about that word for now. This is good.
“I know it sounds kind of funny, but it’s really not a nice thing to say to someone. That’s name-calling, right? And that’s just not a way to behave. Sweet boys never say such things.”
Not to mention the “fucking” part. But he knows we don’t use language like that. And by “we” I mean “he” and not “me”. Fuck no, not me! At least I try not to ever say it in front of the children.
“So why did that girl call that kid a turd, anyway?
“I have no idea, babe. I wasn’t there, but sometimes kids just say rude things to each other. I hope you’ll always remember to be kind to your friends. There’s no need for that kind of rudeness.” My poor son has no idea how big a lie that just was. But he is only five. Give him time to work out for himself that sometimes there is TOTAL need for that kind of rudeness.
He’s back at his video game now, effortlessly speeding his digital car around an imaginary track, over a huge ramp, into a loop-de-loop… he is silent. I know it won’t last. I can almost hear the little cogs spinning around in his head. He is thinking about something else.
“And mummy?” Silence broken.
“Yes, Oliver.”
“That teenager girl said the f-word too.”
“I know. You said. Thanks for not repeating it again. Sometimes teenagers say that a lot.” (Not to mention mummies…) “But there are so many other words, better words to use to explain yourself when you’re upset.”
“Like cross?” I try not to smile every time he tells me he’s cross. It’s just so freakin’ cute. So much cuter and saner than the other ways he sometimes choose to tell me that he’s angry. I love it. (Except when he tells me he’s furious, which is seldom, but it cracks me up every time.)
“Yes. That’s a perfect word.”
“Okay then.”
Silence.
“You’re a good kid, Oliver.”
“You’re a good kid too, mummy.” He turned around and winked at me, and then went back to his game. A handsome, winking five-year-old. I must make a better effort not to wreck this kid, or it’ll be hell to pay soon. I can practically see the girls lining up at our door already. Can’t let him turn into a horrible potty-mouth like his mother.
But I gotta tell ya, with that little wink, the kid made my whole day. Just like that. Sincere compliments from little kids are the most precious of gems. It can take the grumble out of this girl in a nanosecond, and anything that can do that is worth it’s weight in gold… it’s the best part of collecting rug-rats in the first place.
G.G.
