And so, we have reached the age where my son’s non-stop talk
leads to occasional embarrassment and/or hilarity. —
Three-year-olds don’t really have a great handle on either
discretion or volume control. This means
that if my son sees a really, really big guy on the train, he’s probably going to
yell out, “That guy’s big!” Which he
has, on occasion, done.
Living in a city with as diverse a population as New
York, you will eventually come across a little person
when walking down the street with your kid. Once said kid reaches a certain age, he is going to be fascinated by
that and will invariably share his excitement vocally. Which my son did last week, pointing a finger
and practically screaming, “Look! That
lady is little!” I’m betting it’s
nothing that your average little person hasn’t heard before, but it’s not great
fun being the parent who has to quiet that down and explain, again, about
pointing.
We have, since our son was born, been doing our best to
teach him to not be embarrassed by his genitalia. We’ve avoided using cutesy names for it and
have generally referred to it as “your penis” in conversation. Which lead, during a clothes-changing moment
the other day, to him screaming out, “Look! My penis!” That one was in the
privacy of our own home, but you know it’s just a matter of time until
something similar comes out of him at a museum.
This is not to say that everything that comes out of his
mouth has been cause for embarrassment.
He blurts out some hilarious sentences. He says things that are just plain adorable.
My wife got a video of him singing an original five-minute
song about his love of crackers. The
lyrics were fairly simple. Mostly, it
was just repetition of the phrase “I like crackers, I really do like
crackers.” At top volume.
Yesterday, he brought up the topic of marriage for the first
time, explaining to us that he intends to marry one of his preschool
classmates. Our hearts melted into
sloppy heart-puddles on the floor. (Quick clarification: I don’t
think the little girl in question will accept his proposal. She seems to be too career-driven to marry
before college.)
My wife and I are both soaking all this in and doing our
best to truly appreciate this period in our son’s development. Because we both know that, all too soon, he’s
going to be saying somewhat less adorable things, like, “Shut up, Dad! God, you’re an idiot!”
*deep sigh*
