Asshole, Dick, Fuck. In That Order.

Sometimes I get a little off-track with this blog. Half my posts of late have just been rants and ramblings that have absolutely nothing to do with parenting, and it seems like it's been a while since I actually wrote a post about the shit my kid is doing now. And there is so much shit she is doing now, I can hardly keep up. In fact, I wrote out a checklist of shit-she-is-doing points to hit in this post, so I don't forget anything.

Overall, I'd say the biggest change I've seen in Caitlyn over the past few months (besides, you know, the fact that she never shuts up, ever ever) is how she wants to do everything I do. I mean, obviously this isn't brand new or anything... pretty much everything babies and toddlers do is mocking on some level. The difference now is that she's not just mirroring me when I prompt her to anymore. She's started doing these things of her own accord.

The mirroring thing had hit a high point a few months ago, when she would try to do things like shave her legs in the shower when I did. That kind of mirroring is fucking adorable (you know, except for the part where she thinks she can play with my razor). Recently though, her attempts at being just like mommy have been slightly less adorable. For example, while we were on vacation, I was vacation-eating and it gave me the shits because my body had gotten used to me being pretty healthy of late. One afternoon I spent a solid 30 minutes in the bathroom with diarrhea (I know how you love these kinds of stories- you're welcome!). And in those 30 minutes, Caitlyn walked into the bathroom, oh, I don't know, let's go with 700 times. Shortly after the entire contents of my digestive tract had been forcibly removed, Caitlyn decided she wanted to use the potty.

This has actually also been a big milestone for us of late. It's certainly not consistent yet, but she pees on the potty at least once a day now. Which isn't my point at all. My point is that when Caitlyn says she needs to go potty, I immediately and enthusiastically encourage her. So was the case on the day I got the shits.

She finds it pretty novel, using the big girl toilet, so I never quite know what to expect when she says she has to go. Sometimes she pees almost immediately. Sometimes she insists on getting on and off the toilet 10 times. Sometimes she sits there for 2 seconds, declares she's "all done", then flushes the toilet 4 times. Sometimes she mostly just unravels the toilet paper. Her newest thing is the take the toilet cleaner brush out of the holder and dunk it into the toilet the moment she gets up. On that day though, her mission was clear. She was going to make fun of me. She climbed up onto the toilet (because GOD FORBID I help her up) and immediately scrunched up her face and made some fake straining noises. She then hopped right back down and said "mommy's turn!". Uncool, kid.

Since we are on the subject, though, I should say that during our vacation, and in the week since we've come home, there has been a great increase in using the potty. Two nights ago, Caitlyn peed on the potty 3 separate times. Then she pooped on there too. I've never been so excited about another person's bowel movements in my life. I'm hoping we can move on to underwear in a couple more months.

There is another area where Caitlyn is starting to hit her stride though, no longer just taking cues from mommy, but really owning it as her own. Cursing.

As you may remember, Caitlyn's first bad word was asshole. She was mistakenly under the impression that this was the dog's name, though, so I couldn't really hold it against her. After that she started saying dick. I will take 100% responsibility on that one, because it's not just that I said it to her once and she repeated it, it's the fact that after she repeated it I started laughing hysterically. And really, who wouldn't? When you are mad at your tiny 18 month old for some random act of attitude and she responds by beaming her best smile at you and confidentally, comically declaring "DICK!", well, just, how DON'T you laugh at that? You can't. It's physically impossible. I mean, you know, until the 30th time or so. Now I can actually hold a straight face long enough to tell her it isn't a nice word and that she shouldn't say it. And mostly she doesn't anymore, save for a rare occasion when she knows she's in a lot of trouble and she thinks her comic relief will save her from time outs (or beatings. I mean, probably beatings. I try to use a 70/30 beating to time out ratio).

The problem now, though, is that she isn't just using these words because she knows they will make me laugh. She's using them in context. Actually, "them" is inaccurate. "It" is more appropriate. Because there is only one bad word she regularly uses now. She doesn't use it in anger. This is not a tantrum kind of thing. She's absolutely not trying to get a reaction out of me.

The first time she said it, I hardly noticed. I sort of just glanced at Rodolfo, eyebrows raised, as if to say "did you hear that too?". He wasn't sure either, so we assumed it was some sort of toddler jibberish word that just sounded like the word we, as adults, would automatically hear. After that I started to notice a pattern though. She would always say it after some mild inconvenience. She would drop something on the floor or the dog would steal her last goldfish cracker, something like that. Nothing she would actually be that upset about. And it was always muttered under her breath. Not because she thought she might get in trouble, but because when I say it in the context she was using for it, I'd mutter it under MY breath. Then, at some point (that point being when she started lovingly embracing Swiper the Fox's catchphrase "oh, man!"), she started adding "man!" to the mix.

It went something like this: mild inconvenience, then exasperated sigh, followed by "man... fuck".

We are going to have to get that shit cleared up before she goes to Kindergarten.

I think I'll split this into two posts. More Caitlyn updates tomorrow-ish.