X-rated!!! (Don't read if easily offended!)

Okay, so I have three boys ages 7, 5 and 5. And we're experiencing some minor issues. Okay, maybe not so minor? Anyway you look at it, today was a day of some very dirty words.

It all started this morning. I woke up to the sun shining through the windows and the chatter of a very serious discussion coming from below. The boys were up early as usual for a Saturday, playing on the computer while quietly debating. For some reason (exhaustion?) I laid in bed and just listened in:

Riley: "I don't think it's a dirty word. It can't be."
Shannon: "Yes it is, it's privates talk."
Riley: "It can't be. It was in the Shrek movie."
Shannon: "No, I know it's a bad word. Brecken told it to me on the bus!"
Riley: "It was even in the song from Shrek. 'I'm too sexy for my cat, my pussy pussy cat...' "

Okay!!! Time to get out of bed! After coming downstairs, I asked the boys what they were talking about. Shannon immediately wanted to know if there was a bad word in the Shrek movie and I said, "Ummmm..." I went on to explain how cats used to be referred to in that way, and that some people distorted the meaning of it, so kinda/sorta.... "Could you just not say it, Shannon?" I managed to spit out. My greatest fear at the moment was a direct question about what the word meant and thankfully they didn't seem too curious.

A few hours later Shannon had a question for me. A serious one. I knew this because he began to whisper. "Mommy, I know that word was a bad one and I know that peanuts is bad too. It's privates, isn't it?"

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Well, I guess that's how it's going to go. Riley, two years older, obviously either didn't have classmates quite as advanced as Shannon, or knew better than to ask me when a dirty word was introduced to him. Either that or Riley has been very sheltered. Shannon sure seems to see it all, hear it all and question it all.

I knew that lately Shannon was seated near some boys who were more worldly (?) than himself on the bus, and he had mentioned that they liked to 'potty talk'. ('Potty talk' in our house means bad words or words like poop, diaper and pee-pee, words Corey is a little obsessed with, as you may know.) I didn't inquire too much at the time, but reminded him that he was not allowed to 'potty talk.' Every day after Shannon's confession, his laments about his day at school have been about the bus ride home.

Apparently Nick and Brecken, two boys from the bus, like to say bad words and Shannon told them he wouldn't talk 'potty talk' with them. When Shannon insisted they stop or they couldn't be his friends, they decided that they would talk 'potty talk' all the time just to get a reaction. On Friday, Shannon informed me that they were no longer friends and that he would always ignore them forever. I tried to counsel and console him, but he didn't seem to be too upset. He was pretty certain that they were bad and he didn't need to be friends with them anymore. Okay.

So that's where we're at on the 'potty talk' front. I'm trying not to make too big of a deal out of it, I think the boys have a pretty good idea of what they need to do to stand up for themselves, and I know that they're exposed to so much more now that they're in school. I'm not saying this is great, I'm just saying I'm not too surprised.

After all, as the youngest of five and way too worldly for my age because of it, I can recall sitting on the bus to St. Mary's Elementary School in the first grade. My best friend seated next to me was an extremely naive only child from a very devout family. In the nicest possibly way, I would lean over to her, cup my hand around her ear and whisper, "My brother told me..." You don't want to know where it went from there. She turned out okay, and I turned out... well, I'm almost normal. My boys will be, too.