Potty Mouth

I got pretty lucky with my boys.  We never went through the aggravating biting or hitting stages, and despite a uniquely intense desire to trash our home, Cael and Graham's behavior is pretty typical of children their age.

Along with that typical behavior, I understand, is a love for all things inappropriate.  Body parts, things that stink, bottoms, diapers, belches and armpits.  These things and more are like catnip-laced crack for four and six year-olds.  But as time has passed, their interest in bathroom humor has grown exponentially, just like their ability to produce gas (and laughs) on command.

At first, my husband (a former boy) reassured me that this activity falls under that rhetorical list of What Boys Do that mothers will never understand.  I have also placed "beating each other senseless and coming back for more" on the list, right behind "eating sandwiches into the shape of a weapon".  He urged me to let it go, and know that this too, as many say, will pass.

Expect it didn't.  It hasn't, that is, and now it bothers him as much as it does me.

Their bone-deep need to be inappropriate is like a terrible itch that, if they had any semblance of control I would likely let them scratch from time to time just to get it out of their system.  But that itch has become an obsession and I can barely speak without triggering a vicious cycle of bathroom humor hatred.  I speak some innocuous word that causes laughter; laughter leads to lack of control; lack of control leads to forced farts; and forced farts cause laughter again.

And let me just say that you don't want to be trapped in a car with them when this laughter > loose bowel > fart cycle hits.

It goes something like this.

"Okay, boys, who wants to go with me into Target?"

"We just want to go home."

"Okay, but if I don't--"

"Hahaha!  Graham, Mommy said 'butt'!"

"I did not, I was just saying that--"

"Butt!  Butts and poop!  Poop stinks, Cael!  Your butt is stinky too, when you poop!"

"Graham, that's enough.  I was just saying that if I don't run into Target I can't get noodles and peas for--" 

"Pee!  Like peeing in a toilet or in a diaper like a baby!  Mommy pees in a diaper!  I have to tell my teacher that Mom pees her pants into a diaper!  I bet my teacher pees her pants, too.  I'll tell her that and she'll think it's funny."

"It's not funny, Cael.  Neither your teacher or I pee our pants.  We are far past the point where stuff like that is funny." 

"Point, Cael!  Like pointing a toot at you.  Excuse me!  Excuse me!"

And then the air turns green and my hair goes straight.

It seems like too ridiculous an offense to escalate to timeouts and loss of privileges, but we are far beyond the point of ignoring the constant, never-ending, mind-grating bathroom banter.

So what is a Mom to do?  (Do, not doody.)  I just hope to nip this in the bud (the BUD!) before I expel a little potty talk of my own. 

"Mom said potty!"

%*(&$!