OK, so it started as a harmless game. A little bit of fun during bath time, playing around with language at tea, banter during the nursery run. So why didn’t we ever stop to consider that teaching our son trash-talk might not be such a great idea… that is until a family christening this past weekend.
“You’re a wee wee head. I put you in the dirty bin. The bin men collect you.”
A 14 year old girl (whom my 2 year old son had taken rather a shine to) thought this hilarious and gee’d him on, giggling, “You put me in the dirty bin?”.
Sensing he’d stumbled across pure comedy gold, my son warmed to his audience and his stand up routine. “You are smelly poo poo. I put poo poo on you nose. You crocodile wee wee head.”. The more he trash talked, the more those around us laughed and the more his captive audience grew until half the room seemed to be guffawing at my son. I half expected him to launch into a series of “Yo Momma is so fat…” jokes (Heaven Forbid! His nickname for me is ‘big tummy’, as it is).
Thankfully we were then distracted by all-out war kicking off between two pony-tailed toddlers over a pram and dolly (early indications of maternal instinct?). An audible cheer could be heard from the bar and I’m sure someone offered to ‘take bets’ (I would have had my money on the one in pink winning. Ignoring the obvious height, weight and age advantage, this girl had the savage determination to keep hold of Tiny Tears at all costs).
But back to my tearaway. Part of me wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole (who wants to be the proud owner of a ‘terrible twos’ toddler?), but is it wrong of me to say that an even larger part of me was also very proud? I’m not training my little one to have an ASBO by 5, but I was rather impressed that he was stringing 6 or 7 words together in a sentence. Ok, so that sentence might be rude and grandma might be showering me with stern, disapproving looks, but 7 words – that’s my boy.
