Potty Training the Potty Mouth

Olivia has been in panties for a month. My life is changed. Her life is changed. Forever. She can go to school, college and get married without wearing diapers. I can't, however, guarantee that she will die without diapers. I don't think she yet realizes the magnitude of this step. I recognized it right away when I stopped buying them and stopped changing them.

Unfortunately for us, we have to begin a new kind of potty training. I mean, of course, Olivia's out-of-the-blue potty mouth. I have generally well-behaved children. Olivia definitely has a mind of her own and a strong social personality, but she is rarely ill-behaved, rude and mean. I was therefore shocked at what came out of her mouth at Walmart today.

There we were, standing in front of the milk. I put a gallon of whole milk in the cart and turned around to get the 1% milk when I heard her say, "You a$$!" What? I asked her to say it again and again because I wasn't sure I heard her right the first time; she has a lisp and it's hard for me to understand her sometimes. Of course, it was one of those lose-lose situations. You can't say it back because what if she really didn't say that? Then you've taught her a naughty word. So you're left with the alternative: asking her to repeat the socially unacceptable phrase over and over and over and over again so you can be sure that's really what she said. Yes, it was really what she said.

Thankfully, she willingly obeyed when I told her not to say that anymore because it was naughty. I was just thinking how cleverly observant my child is (I say that because she picked up the phrase from one of Aubrey's TV shows that she wasn't even really paying attention to) and how obedient she is when, out of the blue, she says another phrase for all to hear.

This time, I was picking up shampoo just before heading to the check-out lane. It was as if she stood up in the cart with a megaphone: Attention Walmart shoppers: butthead. This one she thought was funny and I could not for the life of me get her to stop saying it. I immediately thought two things: the forbidden and disgusting TV show Beavis and Butthead and how I was going to kill Aubrey for watching his Men of a Certain Age show with Olivia in the room. Yes, I thought how I was going to kill him dead. Or at least give him an earful after supper.

"Olivia, that is really inappropriate." Butthead!

"Olivia, that is naughty. Don't say it." Butthead!

"OLIVIA! That is ugly and mean. We don't say that to people." Butthead!

Thank goodness every other woman in that isle was also a mother. They understood. They laughed at me. Even the conservative Mennonite woman behind us laughed. Finally, I just decided I had to ignore her, as my reaction was obviously fanning the flame. I listened to a chorus of buttheads all the way to the check-out line. By the time we got out to the car, however, she had quit. I suppose the word had lost its novelty.

Then at the red light: "Mama! Mama! Mooooom! Look at me! Butthead!"