What is it about little boys and bathroom words? Actually, boys of ALL ages seem to love bathroom words! Why do boys find words like "poopy" and "booty" so hilarious? It seems to be some kind of universal code of the male species.
Before I was a mother, I remember people warning me about this potty mouth phenomenon. I denied that my child would ever think any bathroom words were funny. HA! I should have known better. My own husband, a grown man, thinks things like farts are hilarious, what in the world made me think my son would be any different???!
I'm not sure exactly when it started. I remember my son laughing about farts as early as the age of two. Though I couldn't stop him from laughing about it, I was so proud that at least I taught him to say excuse me when he passed gas.
Sometime after he turned three, bathrooms words started to become way more hilarious to my son. Of course, hubby thought it was great and even (gasp!) encouraged it. They'd sing songs about poopy, hubs would pretend to eat A's animals and then poop them out, or they'd just sit together and take turns continuously saying "poopie" and laughing. While I found it annoying and gross, I tried my best to ignore them. After all, boys will be boys and they weren't hurting anyone!
Then one day, I picked my son up from preschool a few minutes early. I was just in time to see the kids singing their "goodbye song". During the song, I noticed the teacher kept reprimanding "A" for something. As soon as the song was over and the kids started leaving, the teacher walked over to me. "Oh crap!" I thought, "What in world could he have done???"
My son almost never gets in trouble in preschool. The only thing I can remember him getting disciplined for last year was throwing mulch on the playground. Needless to say, I knew something was up. Teacher did not look happy! She explained to me that my son and a few other three year old boys would not stop saying "poopie" all day long, even after several warnings and some time outs! Then, during the goodbye song, my son and his friends thought it would be hilarious to sing "goodbye poopie" instead of singing goodbye to each of the other children. She told me that he would not stop even after she asked him to several times.
Oh shit!! (No pun intended.....)
My first reaction was to reprimand my son. I explained to him that it was not okay to talk about bathroom words outside of the bathroom. But when I got to the car, I started to wonder if it really was that big of a deal. Those of you who have survived raising three year olds know that everything is a constant battle. Is it really important to battle with kids over saying words that pretty much all boys their age say?
Then again I'm a former teacher and I realized that I wasn't as upset about my son's potty mouth as I was about the fact that he didn't listen to the teacher when she asked him to stop. Hubby and I both talked to A that night and tried to explain to him that potty words were not okay to say at school, even if the other boys were saying them. I also told hubs that he needed to cool it on the poop talk for a while. (By the way, that lasted about a week....or less!!!)
Still my son did not seem to grasp the fact that it's not always okay to say these words in public. After I spoke with him, he overheard me discussing the issue with my mother and mother-in-law on the phone. He began laughing hysterically and yelling, "I was singing 'goodbye poopie!!!' " like it was the funniest freaking thing he ever heard. I became more and more distraught. That is until I started hanging out with other moms and their 3, 4, and 5 year old boys.
Guess what?! ALL the little boys talked and laughed about poops, farts, booties, butts, etc!!! These were not even boys who went to my son's school. As I observed the boys I realized that there must be something in their DNA that causes them to be this way. My girlfriends all said their sons do the same exact thing. They also said their husbands do it too. HA! In fact, one of my friends told me that once when she was driving her 4 year old and his buddy to t-ball, the boys spent the entire ride saying "poop" and "poopie" and laughing. This made me breathe a sigh of relief. Just today we were hanging out with some boys from the neighborhood and they spent at least ten minutes shaking their butts and laughing about it.
My son is normal after all! Halle-freakin-lujah!!!
Thankfully, it wasn't long before the school year ended. My hope is that he will mature over the summer and forget all about this "goodbye poopie" nonsense.
Maybe pigs will start flying too.
