The kids are very interested in the word “poopie” right now. I’m not sure if this is a phase all kids go through, or if we’re just lucky, but everything is “poopie” this and “poopie” that.

Of course, I’m doing everything I can to stop it. We’ve had serious discussions about words that you don’t say in public. We’ve also talked about words having meaning, and you only use them when you mean them.

I’ve had very limited success. That is to say that they don’t walk around chanting “poopie, poopie, poooopie!” any more, but they still try to work it into their every day conversation.

The other day, N pointed to a spot on the bathroom door, “Poopie! Look! Poopie, Daddy! Poopie!”

I looked at it intently, but it was just a little bit of mud. I’m not sure how it got there – probably from a shoe kicking against the door – but there it was. “No,” I said, “It’s just dirt.”

“Poopie!” He said with a big grin.

“No, it’s just dirt.” I then started to go into my “only say ‘poopie’ when you mean it” lecture, but I stopped myself. This time, he had actually meant it. He was staring at the dirt, trying to decide if I was right or not.

“If you ever do see poopie on the door, though, tell momma and she’ll clean it.” Now that I’m writing this down, it sounds pretty bad. I was telling him to tell momma, though, because she’s the one here during the day. Of course, when I’m here, we share cleaning duties. In fact, as I was saying this, I was straightening up to go get a paper towl to take care of it.

“Tell momma?” He said.

“Yep, tell momma.” I said, and headed out to the kitchen.

He ran past me, running to get to momma first: “Mommy, mommy, Poopie!”

Uh, whoops.

Momma, it turns out, had been listening to this whole exchange from the kitchen, and she was not happy. “Daddy’s going to take care of it. Isn’t he?”

The little guy nodded. “Yep.” He looked up at me. “Poopie, daddy! Poopie!”

Don’t worry, little guy. I got it taken care of. It’s all good.

I hope.