Who Needs a Comedian - I Have Kids - Part III

We recently had a parent teacher conference for Son #2. He's a great student, and a model citizen, and she wishes she had a class full of him. Her only recommendation was that he continue to work on his reading and writing. He was good, just not fast, and needed more practice.

I was encouraged that soon after the conference, Son #2 was walking around with a notepad scribbling furiously. Every so often he'd ask us to spell something, but for the most part, he wrote copiously without our help, but never wanting to share much.

The first evidence I found of his budding interest in journalism was his personal daily journal. It consisted of entries such as:

• I went upstares.
• I said hi Ryder.
• Ryder got skard and barked.
• I laffed.

A few days later I happened to find his "secret journal" laying wide open on the couch. "Brother is stuped. I thenc Dad is stuped. Mom cind of." Clearly this was where his deepest, darkest emotions were captured during his periods of eight-year-old angst. I know I should have put it down, but curiosity (and my general copyrights to all materials created by my offspring and fruit of my loins until they are self supporting) got the better of me and I couldn't resist turning the page. Our next entry was an experiment in scatological and other rhetoric related to bathroom functions, bodily parts used in reproductive and bathroom functions, etc.

• poophed
• butthed
• weener
• buttfase
• poopfase
• farthead

I don't catch him using those words that often in the house; perhaps this was his outlet. And I'm trying to weigh the pros and cons of the whole situation. I mean, I want to encourage the writing habit. I want to give him some independence. He's having to exercise phonics skills, and creative alternative word choices, and journaling . . . that's all good, right? At the same time, as a mother, I would like my son's topics and word choices to expand beyond the horizons of his groin and the bathroom (though being the male of the species, this may be some high expectations for him to meet).

I closed the secret journal back up, and left it lie.

He hasn't been carrying it around much these last couple of weeks, and I thought maybe he'd outgrown the phase. Then last week, while I was in my office cleaning phase, I found a lovely picture of a snow man he'd made in school and brought home right before the holiday break, that said "To mom and dad". I was admiring it proudly when I noticed some pencil scribbles on the bottom, clearly an aftermarket item.

"Poopyhead. Farter. Buttfase."

Tell me it gets better than this?*

Respectfully submitted,

The Wife

* In my foolish hope that it will get better, I continue to let him draw and write as he wishes. At our last family dinner at a teppanyaki place, he was finishing the picture of the teppanyaki chef on his kid's menu. His finished picture included the chef saying "Die!" to the food and "He's ded." to a piece of chopped meat. It also included some wavy lines by the chef's butt which my 8-year-old indicated was "the chef farting."