She said "Penis"

The girls sat down at the table to wait for EN to return with dinner last night, when Spice suddenly grabbed a stick that had been attached to a balloon, stood on her chair, waved the stick around and said, “Bippity, boppity, boo, I’m going to turn you into a penis.” Of course the self-righteous Sugar was appalled at her sister’s potty mouth. She glared at me, clearly waiting for me to address the bad behavior of her devilish little sister. Spice, on the other hand, was delighted to have gotten a reaction and twirled on her chair (still standing) while waving the magic wand.

I was at a loss as to how to handle this one, so I asked, “Where did you learn that word?” Still twirling, she chirped, “Nicholas told it to me.” I told her that in the future, she should not make any attempts to turn her sister into a penis.

This is an area of mothering where the rules aren’t clear. Of course it’s not nice to try to turn your sister into a penis, or a frog, or a bug… no one wants to be turned into something with a negative connotation. So we have a rule: you can only “bippity boppity boo” your sister into something pleasant.

It’s the use of the P word that concerns me at this point. She obviously knows what it is. I know this because she shared her new-found knowledge with me in great detail. Is there supposed to be a ban on proper terminology? I could list off 1,000 other words that mean the same thing and certainly, those words are not appropriate. I wouldn’t let her use them EVER. I just don’t know how to address the vocabulary that Spice obviously uses for shock value alone. That mothering handbook isn’t helping me out here… How do you handle it?

The word has not been used again. This morning though, she bent her arm, pointed her elbow in my direction and said, “Doesn’t my elbow look like a boobie?”

Sigh.

xoxo

Ice Princess