Expletive Deleted

Oh Shit! Oh Shit! Oh Shit! Oh Shit!

It's getting out of hand, The Boy is using the phrase for everything.

"Oh Darn" we reply. "Oh Darn" he'll repeat, but it doesn't stick, next time something isn't quite right... "Oh Shit".

Really who can blame The Boy. "Shit", and its equally profane cousin "Fuck" are deeply satisfying words to say. You can really feel a release of tension after each utterance. It's the verbal equivalent of an orgasm.

- "Got a minute to talk?"
- "Happy Ending?"
- "Fuck yeah!"

See? Don't you feel better already?

The words are versatile too. Either one can be used as a noun, adjective, adverb, modifier, transitive or intransitive verb, subject and object.

- "Fuck, you scared the shit out of me!"
- "He shit his pants."
- "What the fuck?"

It's easy to see why these two words are so popular, but it would be irresponsible of us as parents not to deal with this now and steer The Boy back to more age appropriate language.

"Muthafucka" can wait till he's four.

The Parrot

The past couple of months have been among my favourite with The Boy. Not to say I haven't been lovin' every minute with him, but the last little while has been extra fun. Not only has he developed a great sense of humour, he's starting to string sentences together, which is both cool and adorable. The fact he uses the words and sentences appropriately, instead of random babble, is just icing on the cake.

On Saturday he picked up his music kit. It's a toy drum with a collection of instruments inside. As he's carrying it to the coffee table, the bottom head pops off and all the instruments fall out. A few months ago he might have uttered the phrase "Uh Oh. This time he looks at the mess of instruments and says, "Oh Shit." At least he's using the phrase appropriately, but we'd prefer it if he just didn't say it at all. Looks like the time has come for me and P to clean up our act.

I'm going to miss swearing, but we're doing it for The Boy. I mean, if we don't and he keeps using this type of language, can joining a street gang be far off? Innocent play will soon be replaced by pedal-car jackings and cookie-pushing. And onesies and sleepers dropped in favour of those oversized, novelty pants kids seem to think are still cool.

Those oversized pants always struck me as an odd thing to wear if you're doing (or pretending to do) crime and be "street". How do you expect to run from the law if your pants are down by your ankles? You'd think that if doing crime was the objective, wearing a unitard or some sort of spandex would be more appropriate.

Unitard? Spandex? Maybe that's why no one joined my gang when I was a kid. It would be like running with the cast of a Broadway musical.

Maybe it is an Unlucky Day

Well bats didn't come flying out of The Boy's ass, but this past Friday the 13th did have a its share of unfortunate events.

At 10 pm Friday night we took The Boy to the emergency room. He had a high fever and wouldn't settle down to sleep. Last time he had similar symptoms it turned out to be an ear infection. Rather than leaving him in pain until Monday we decided to go to the hospital.

Five hours and a catheter up his penis later, it turns out The Boy just had a nasty cold. P and I felt like total hypochondriacs. Five hours wasted at the hospital for a condition you treat with bed rest and nasal spray. The thing is, it looked like an ear infection to me. Now I'm worried the next time he's sick we'll think twice about taking him to the hospital. What if it's more serious? Gaaah!

So Linda Blair didn't appear in our living room spewing vomit on our walls this Friday the 13th, but considering how we spent the night, that would have been more entertaining.

We've decided to postpone potty training until The Boy's feeling better.

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Sidebar: The Boy does appear to enjoy sitting on his potty. He'll merrily read a book and squat on the pot for 10-15 minutes at a time. Just like Dad!

20 Month Report

Today The Boy turned 20 months old. He's 33" tall, weighs 26 lbs and still shits his pants. I usually don't buy into that baleful Friday the 13th crap - it's just another day to me - but today does bear some extra significance. Today we start toilet training.

We think The Boy is ready.

• He runs off and hides when he's pooping, so he definitely knows when that's going on.
• He's beginning to get a sense of when he pees.
• He's becoming obsessed with being clean.
• He'll say "Poo" or "No Poo" when we ask him
• I'm sick of changing diapers

Is Friday the 13th a good day to start toilet training? If a hand reaches out of the potty and pulls me in, while bats fly out of his asshole, I'll consider that a set-back.

Little Mr. Clean

Sunday morning I was feeding The Boy breakfast at his table. P and I spend a lot of time at his table these days. If we eat at the grown-up table, he eventually sits on one of our laps, effectively ending any chance that person has of getting a hot meal. So we sit at his toddler table. He loves it, we give him some snacks and he holds court while we eat.

Anyways back to Sunday morning. He was merrily eating his breakfast when he noticed his sippy cup leaked milk onto the table. He looked at me and pointed, "A meh. A meh. All weh" (A mess, a mess, all wet)

Yeah I know kid, a mess, but let's finish breakfast first.

"No! A meh!" He pushed the spoon away, hopped off his chair, grabbed a dish towel from the basket and proceeded to wipe up the spill.

Now if I can get him to scrub the toilets and vacuum the floors, I'll be set.

A Cross Canadians Must Bear

Funny defined: Things that make me laugh.

It's become apparent no one at the venerable Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Canada's national broadcaster) shares my definition.

I don't understand how the executives at the CBC can watch an episode of the Royal Canadian Air Farce and think to themselves, "Now this is comedic gold." Easily the least funny program to ever to make it on television, the Air Farce ranks up there with Schindler's List in terms of humour. Even their promo picture makes me sad.

Oh sure, they're a Canadian institution, around since the 70's, but that is no excuse to keep them on the air. No wonder the CBC loses money year after year, make better programming choices! Dumping money into a show just because it's tradition is like masturbating to Sesame Street - it doesn't make any sense.

No wonder the rest of the world doesn't take the Canadian entertainment industry seriously. First we unleash the diva/mongoose known as Celine Dion onto the world, and now the Air Farce celebrates its 300th episode.

A comedy troupe should be funny, the Air Farce is not.

Now this Japanese Game Show. This is funny.

Get Suspenders Dude

Yesterday The Boy and I met P downtown for lunch at The Templeton, a fun diner-style restaurant downtown. Typical diner layout, long and narrow with booths and stools along the counter comprising all the seating options; in other words, not stroller or highchair friendly. Even though the place is one of our favourite spots, we avoided coming here for that very reason, there was no place for The Boy. Now verging on 20 months, he could kneel in the booth and chow at the table with us.

Templeton, we're back.

As we headed towards the restaurant, The Boy fell asleep. Uh oh, now what? Fortunately the staff let us leave him in the stroller next to the jukebox, and fortunately no one plugged the jukebox full of coin. We got a seat in the adjacent booth and settled in for our first meal here in over a year and a half.

Then this guy sat down.



Holy ass-crack!

Check please!