talking butts

I know I said I was on a blogging break, but I just have to take a minute and talk about the F-word. Not that one, the one that rhymes with dart and heart. Yeah, I'm really gonna go there. I don't know what you call it in your family, but FART was a bad word for my husband and the household he grew up in. We never really had an official meeting of what we were going to call it with our kids, I personally don't think FART is a bad word, but don't tell my mother-in-law that I said that.

When we were first married, my husband and I were visiting my beloved grandma Roma. She was getting up from her chair and walking into the kitchen... While she was making her way across the room, she was passing gas every time she moved! She turned around after the 20th fart and said in a very charismatic way, "Oooh. Was that me?" We all laughed, including Roma. Over the years, Aaron and I have repeated that line many times (and believe me, it's hilarious coming from Aaron with his Roma impersonation...)

Since our kids have been around, we haven't really had one word that stuck. I have heard my nieces and nephews say, "I laid a stinker egg" and I think that's just down right disgusting... especially when it becomes a visual object... gross! Other terms like "tooting" "breaking wind" or "cutting the cheese" just don't seem to jive with our family vocab. I don't know.. it's a tricky subject when you're raising boys who were basically nursing babies with potty-mouths.

I wouldn't say that Aaron and I have tried to avoid the word FART, but since our boys have been little, each time they passed gas, instead of saying what actually happened, Aaron and I would say something like, "Hey! What was THAT?" At first, I think it was a good solution because we didn't ignore the fact that a sound was made, but we also didn't teach them a term we didn't feel right about (because we still really don't agree what to call it!) For a while, asking a question like, "What was that I heard?" was working for us. But then our kids started to talk. And pretty soon, they realized that their butts were talking, too. Every time we asked them, "What was that?" their natural reaction was that their butt had a personality of it's own. Ben, from a very young age would exclaim that his butt said "BOING!" And that was just completely hilarious, especially coming from a two year old.. How could we NOT ask what his butt said after a response like BOING? Out of all the words to choose...

And now that we have Zack (who is the self-proclaimed family comedian) talking butts have taken over our family conversations. The kid farts all the time and he always says, "THAT WAS MY BUTT!" Sometimes if he feels like being polite, he will say, "That was my bum!" Every time he says that, we reply, "Really? What did it say?" And he will think of something new... it's actually a very funny and entertaining game. Last week, his butt said several different things, such as,
"You better be nice!"

"I don't like picking up Legos."

and the hilarious "I am REALLY hungry!"

The other day, when I asked him what I heard, he responded with, "I don't know, Mom. My butt wasn't talking to me. It was talking to YOU!" Of course, that got a round of applause from his older brothers. Our original plot to keep our kids from saying vulgar things has completely backfired.... (no pun intended, seriously.)

Part of me thinks we should have gone with FART all along and wasted the trouble. I mean, that's what kids say anyway, isn't it? My boys are nerdy enough as it is, so I just KNOW (that if I ever did send them to school) they would get beat up at the playground if they ever said "my body just flatulated." And it's not exactly like FART is a BAD word.. It is what it is and we might as well accept it, no?

Well, we have. We have finally fully embraced it. Due to recent Halloween events, Zack has fallen in love with Smarties. Only, he doesn't really pronounce the "SM" sound. Instead of saying, "This is small" He says, "This is Fall." The other day, he told me to "Fell the candle because it fells like strawberries." And so naturally, he calls his favorite candies "FARTIES" Ben and Luke love his interpretation and try to get him to say it all the time, and they want him to say it in full sentences. Now they have this game where they pick up pretend Smarties off the table and say, "Oh, I want to eat a Farty!" Then they pick it up and as soon as it hits their mouth, they make little tooting sounds. As a mother, I should be appalled, but the truth is, even after the 100th time of seeing them do it, it still makes me laugh.

So, let's take a poll. What word does your family use and why? Don't be shy, here. I know there are lots of you out there reading who haven't exactly introduced yourself. If you don't comment on the FART post, when will you ever be able to comment? Come on, use the anonymous tab if you must. We may just find a better term that suits us better than FARTY... but then again, it's kind of grown on me.