Do You Know What That Meat Is?

It must be strange conversation day at our household. It started yesterday, I think.

The Toddler is finally starting to figure out putting two words together. In the bathtub yesterday Julius decided he was going to help him "practice" some of his words.

The conversation went something like this:

J: Can you say "ga ga poo poo?"

T: ga ga. poo poo.

J: Can you say, "dummy?"

T: No.

J: Can you say, "stupid?"

T: No.

J: Can you say, "weiner?" (He likes saying this word a lot now because he finally figure out at school that weiner is sometimes a euphemism for penis.)

T: No.

J: Can you say "butthead?"

T: Butthead.

M: Julius, stop telling him to saying stuff like that.

J: Ok. Can you say, "Ma ma poo poo?"

T: poo poo. Ma ma poopoo head.

M: Okay, okay, that's enough!

Both boys laugh hysterically. Mommy is not really that amused.

* * *

The Toddler also has this new thing he's doing where he'll say something then add, "See?" But the thing is he will keep saying "see" until you acknowledge that you've seen it. The problem in my case is I don't like saying things that aren't true and half the time I'm driving when he says this and I don't see what he's talking about. So the conversation will go like this:

T: Horse. See?
M: Did you see a horse?
T: Yeah, see?
M: No, I didn't see it.
T: See? See?
M: You saw a horse, nice!
T: See? See? Mommy. See?
M: I didn't see it, but I'm sure it was a great horse.
T: Horse. See? See? See? Mommy. See?

This will drive a Mom to start lying. I swear.

So, I'm telling my mom this story this morning when I get in to work. This is a woman who is the most forthright, honest person in the universe. She is the one who taught me that it's better to suffer and endure horrific mental, emotional and physical tortures rather than tell a fib.

I tell her this story and her response is, "Oh, just tell him you see the horse."

I dropped the knife I was using to butter my burned toast. (Another whole story for another post.) "What?"

Wiping a big blob of butter off the floor I reminded her snarkily that that would be LYING.

I could see she was reviewing her entire child-rearing in fast forward in order to come up with some reasonable excuse that it would be okay to lie in this particular case and somehow manage to keep from looking hypocritical. I could almost hear her thinking, "Damn, I did good job!" or maybe she was really thinking, "Wow, how did my daughter end up being such an uptight broad?"

Finally she said, "Well, you could say, 'I've seen a horse.' That wouldn't be lying."

"Yeah, or I could say I see a horse... like I'm seeing it my mind's eye."

Enthusiastically she says, "Yeah, see?"

I rolled my eyes. Obviously I suddenly understand where The Toddler gets it. See? See?

* * *

Tonight at dinner we had ham steak, rice, veggies. We're all sitting there staring at each other in silence because we're shell-shocked from the big yellfest episode just prior to sitting down to dinner.

The Toddler pitched one big doozey of a fit because his dad bought him a new bar of soap and he wanted to have a bath RIGHT NOW. Who knew a fresh bar of soap was so cool? Why didn't I buy him soap for his birthday instead of that stupid $40 ball dropper nightmare that you can't put together without first getting a 5-year engineering degree from MIT?

Julius breaks the ice finally by looking over at The Toddler saying, "Hey, Tristan... do you know what that meat is that you're eating? It's a PIG. You're eating a PIG, Tristan."

The Toddler says, "Hmm." He looks over at my plate, leans over and tries to take my ham.

"Hey, wait a minute. You want some of my ham?"

"No. Pig."

"Um... do you want some of my pig?"

"Yeah."

"That's ham you know. It's the same thing."

"No. Pig."

It's starting already... Mom knows nothing, Big Brother knows everything. Boy am I am trouble!