Operation: Talk to Me. {Three Years Ago}
And then it was 2010, and we were a family of four with a Chocolate Labrador. And Tucker was experimenting with fluency, words, inflection and boundaries.
* * *
Tap, tap, tap on my arm. “Hey, Mommy?”
But I was in a conversation with my mom at the moment, and I didn’t answer right away. Plus, it’s good for little boys to wait, now and then. And then some more.
Tap, tap, tap. “Hey, Mommy?”
I put my hand son his. Message: I heard you. One moment, please.
Tap, tap. “Hey, Mommy Butthead?”
Stop that train.
“Excuse me?!”
“Mommy Butthead.”
“ We do not say that in our family, Tucker. Where did you hear that?”
“Daddy says it. Daddy says, ‘Hey, Mommy Butthead.’”
Okay, no, he doesn’t. Let the record show, my husband does not call me – and neither will I answer to – Butthead.
He does, however, call our dog: Molly Butthead Terd Wad.
And the loose translation of permissible language to little ears is Mommy Butthead.
What is a Mommy to say, when the boys heard it from their very own supportive parental role model?
“Okay, Daddy is talking about the dog. But please don’t say that. I know Daddy does. But please … just, don’t.”
(For the record, Robb thought the use was hysterical … but not so much in reference to Mommy. I stand fully supported of that ix-nay.)
And I live in a frat house, with an elite vocabulary all my own.