What is it with young kids and being naked? I mean, seriously.

My daughter, bless her soul, has a modicum of decency in her. She’ll run from the bathroom to the bedroom (or vice versa depending on if bath is about to be performed or has just been completed). You don’t see her naked anywhere else.

Mr. Man, however, is an unabashed exhibitionist.

I undress him, put him on his feet and tell him to go to the bathroom. He then runs in that odd bowlegged way of all toddlers, arms flailing and giggling out of control as he leads a chase through the house.

This would not be such a problem except his new skills of speed and hairpin direction changes will often lead to me not stopping him before he rubs his naked boy parts and butt all over one of the living room pieces of furniture. If it’s a particularly harrowing day, he’ll hit both the chair and the couch, climbing all over each.

The return trip to the bedroom is as much of a spectacle. And in that scenario, he’s a slippery little dude, quite literally. And I swear he knows it.

Hubby’s contribution to the evening exhibition? He shouts “streaker!!” as the child races by.

Now, typically I’d not be condoning any of this behavior, either that of Mr. Man or his male parental unit. However, there’s that glass houses thing.

You see, when my brother and I were kids, we played “Body Woman and Body Man.”

This particular piece of childhood entertainment consisted of my brother (2 ½ years my younger) and I stripping naked and running around the house shouting “BODY WOMAN AND BODY MAN!” with the passion and pronouncement of a League of Justice narrator.

We thought of ourselves as super heroes. Not sure what we were supposed to be super doing, but we were super none the less.

My mother however, according to my dad, ran around the house closing curtains and blinds as fast as she could lest the neighbors postulate we were all into some kind of kinky child porn ring.

So as Mr. Man streaks through the house in reckless abandon, I just have to laugh. I know he comes across it honestly. And chasing him brings back memories of those long ago buff super heroes of my younger years.

The only thing that baffles me though is why I’m now so very self conscious when I’m naked. Granted, I’m not suggesting I rip the clothes from my body and join Mr. Man in his gleeful rampage as I announce my, err, super powers. It’s just sometimes fun to live vicariously through him.

Ahhh, childhood innocence and a complete lack of humiliation. How I miss thee.

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I got the kids two aviator bears as souvenirs during our trip. They were a gift from one of our meeting hosts, Blue Hawaiian Helicopters.

Mr. Man just snuggles his.

Sweetness, however, stripped hers naked.

It was a little disconcerting to discover the aviator bear laying in her bed wearing nothing but his silk tie and a smile. I sure hope Sweetness doesn’t make this a habit with other male aviators she may encounter.

It’s not worth it Sweetness. Take it from Mommy. They look better in their clothes…

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There’s a reason my nickname for my brother vacillates between “Plunger Face” and “Stinky Pantleg,” both names we called each other when we were kids, and neither of us remember where they came from.

While over during Sweetness’s birthday party last month, my brother noticed Mr. Man needed to be changed. He offered to do it (first hint something was up – unmarried brother offers to change poopy diaper. Beware of this!)

My little man returns to my family and friend-filled living room wearing this:

Revenge will be mine…

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This is what happens when Mommy is late at work and Daddy is in charge of dinner.

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If it wasn’t for the random silliness around here, I just might be committing myself some days. Here are a couple of the things that I saw or heard this week to brighten your Friday the 13th. Enjoy!

His or Hers?
Scene: Mr. Man is sitting on the potty, doing his thing. He’s looking down watching himself pee when he decides to reach down and try to grab the stream. Sweetness is standing by and after I grabbed his hand and distracted him, she piped up with a little commentary of her own:

“No, no, no, Baby Brother. Leave your girly bits alone.”

Are you Kidding?
We went to the pet store to pick up various items for the cats and dogs. I came across this and almost fell over. I think I’ve now seen it all. Sweetness’s hand is over the tagline. It reads, “Keeps you warm and your paws free.”

Do you believe it?

Too Much Deadliest Catch?
Then, yesterday, Mr. Man was fussing as I was preparing his dinner. Fed up with listening to his whining, Sweetness walks up to him and says in an exhasperated tone:

“Oh man Baby Brother, what’s the deal?”

Hubby started laughing and told me she sounded just like Sig Hansen on Deadliest Catch. That can’t be good, can it?

And finally I wanted to give a big thanks to my bloggy buddies LeeAnn from Life with Rylie … and Bryce Too!, Alana from Domestically Challenged, Melissa from Adventuroo, Katie from Articles from Addington, and Melissa from Confessions of a Dr. Mom for all your support, retweets and advice this past couple of weeks as we hit the home stretch of the 31 Days to Build  Better Blog challenge. I’ll be unveiling my new blog look very soon. Stay tuned everyone.

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We’ve been working on potty training. And when I say working, I really mean Mommy has been begging, trying, talking about, reading a million annoying books about, and basically hating the whole potty training thing. So far Sweetness has mastered grabbing her full diaper and announcing she wants to sit on the potty. After months of this, that’s all she’s grasped. Sitting on the potty and announcing when she’s already gone in her diaper. Great.

Well, she is learning. And this morning she shared this new knowledge with Hubby, who was sitting in manly fashion on the couch. You know the pose: legs comfortably apart, leaning back, eyes fixed on the TV. He was wearing baggy cargo shorts and a t-shirt.

Sweetness walked up, grabs him squarely in the “package” and announces, “Daddy pooped.”

In addition to the high pitched squeal worthy of a teenage girl around a tarantula, Hubby said, “No sweetie, that’s not poop.” As he took her hands.

She tried to poke him again. “Daddy go sit on the potty.”

At this point I was giving myself the Heimlich because I was now choking on the strawberry I was eating. Mr. Man also started crawling over to Sweetness and Daddy to investigate the commotion.

“No, I don’t need to use the potty, thank you.” Hubby is bright red and not really sure what to say as he keeps batting away her hands. “I think Mommy needs your help.”

“Oh no, this is too good,” I managed to choke out.

Now Sweetness thinks grabbing at Daddy and having him push her hands away is a great game.

Poor Hubby. Is it sad that that’s the most action he’s gotten in a week?

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Is this in our future?

Well, it finally happened. Since I first saw those two lines on that first pregnancy test I knew I needed to start paying attention to what I said as it would take some discipline to start working a few choice words out of my vocabulary. I’d gotten pretty good, but there were times when I slipped up, like after a long day of nothing going right, low blood sugar due to not eating much, and cranky kids, to say the least. At those times an expletive would sneak out and I’d invariably turn to look into those eyes that were, by Murphy’s Law, always trained on me.

However, the other day I was rushing to pull together Mr. Man’s dinner before he broke out into full upset and I accidentally bumped a glass of milk, knocking it to the ground and spilling it everywhere. Of course, Sweetness was under foot, trying to help me, and fully witnessed my frustrated “damn it!” Then, with the utmost glee and perfect pronunciation, she began to repeat it, over and over. It was enough to make me want to say it again. But what was the need with her saying it enough for us both?

I can’t get the little creature to repeat “I love you” to save my soul, even though I say that to her hundreds of times a day. But she hears this ONCE and it’s perfect pronunciation and repetition out of the gate. Luckily, my youngest dog is Daggett (sounds close, right?). I started saying his name angrily over and over as he was right there trying to lick up the milk and getting underfoot too. She wasn’t convinced. She had herself a new word and she was proud of it. I began envisioning the discussion I was going to have with her daycare provider the day she pulled out that little nugget of vocabulary with the other kids.

But time passed and we didn’t hear the word again. I began to think I got my ‘get out of jail free’ card. Perhaps she forgot it.

NOT A CHANCE. This afternoon we were all eating lunch together at the table and she was messing around at the end of her meal, pushing her plate around and running her spoon around her place mat. Then she dropped her spoon on the floor. She looked down, paused, and said in perfect clarity, “damn it.”

Hubby spit water out his nose, and I bit my lip and covered my face. React and they’ll repeat. I kicked Hubby and he just presumed to cough. I was both horrified and racked with a terrible case of the giggles. She didn’t say it again because we both started calling “Daggett,” who of course was already there because food had hit the floor, or so he thought. (Luckily you don’t pay for your dog to have therapy. This poor pooch.)

I can’t get this girl to use most sentences in the correct context, sentences she’s heard her WHOLE life. But of course, THIS she has to get on the first shot and she not only says it perfectly, she uses it in the right context. What the hell? I’ve decided to draft my letter of apology to the other parents at daycare now, just to get that out of the way. I was hoping to put her up for early entrance into Kindergarten since she’s a September baby. Will they hold this against her? Can they deny you entrance into public school for this? Surely you can’t lose custody of your kids for them learning foul language. Maybe I can enroll her in Los Angeles Unified School District in South Central then no one will notice?

I must admit, I’d like to be a fly on the wall when she pulls this out the day I’m not around. Perfect little blue-eyed, blond-haired little two year old. My only hope is she’s not pronouncing most other words very well that folks will just think she’s trying to say something else and it only sounds like what they think they heard.

Not.

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I’m standing in the bedroom folding laundry on the bed. Sweetness has wandered into the bathroom where hubby is in the shower (we lost the ability to have any privacy when she master the door handle about a month ago). Here is what I hear:

“Hi Daddy.”

“Hi Sweetie.”

“Daddy shower.”

“Yes, Daddy had a shower, now I’m drying off.”

“Dry, dry, dry” (The way he says it when drying her off.) “Dry hair.”

“Yes I’m drying my hair.”

“Dry girlie bits.”

I freeze and bite my lip, lest dear husband hear me explode.

“Well, that’s what we call them when we dry you, but Daddy has boy bits.”

“Girlie bits.”

“I’m a boy, so I have, you know what, nevermind…”

I can’t stand it. He’s trying so hard to accept these are innocent questions and any attempt to get into the birds and the bees with a 2-year-old is wasted air. I sit down, lest some pee get out.

The door opens as hubby is saying, “Daddy’s going to get dressed because he suddenly feels rather vulnerable.” When he sees me we both bust out laughing something fierce, which sends Sweetness into an excited chant: “girlie bits, girlie bits, girlie bits.”

I’m so glad I decided against immediately introducing anatomically correct names for genitalia right off the bat. Good times, good times.

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