One of the things that I’ve been working on with my 8 year old Young Ladrinka is to get him to stop yelling across the apartment when he wants something and to come to me instead.
So far it’s been a phenomenal failure, but I remain hopeful.
MOM! He’ll yell.
… I’ll respond.
MOM! He’ll yell louder and louder, until the walls start to bleed. Eventually, I’ll come out of my room and ask him to please come to me if he needs something and he’ll say, “why, you’re already here” and then I’ll say, “okay, but this is the last time that I’m coming when you yell,” and he’ll agree, and then we’ll celebrate the 6th anniversary of our agreement.
So last week, I’d had it with this shit and I was absolutely, no way am I coming out of my room. I’m not going to be at his beck and call. I deserve some happiness, in the form of Millionaire Matchmaker (by the way, how does Patti calculate her 95% success rate? Because conventional math does not seem to be involved).
“Mom!” Young Ladrinka beckoned. I settled in for an infinity of ignoring.
“MOM, IS DICK A CURSE WORD?”
And, goodbye Millionaire Matchmaker!
“Yes, it’s a curse word,” I emerged from my room.
“Dad said that it was a boy’s name,” he told me.
“It’s a boy’s name and a curse word.”
“Dad said that it just meant ‘jerk’.”
“It means ‘penis’.”
“Why did Day say that it meant ‘jerk’?”
“It also means ‘jerk’.”
“And penis?”
“Yes.”
“So if I say, for example, ‘Dad is a dick,’ what does that mean?”
“It means you’re grounded.”
“No, I’m not calling him a dick, I’m just saying an example.”
“Please stop saying ‘dick’.”
“Okay. Â …”
“What did you just whisper?”
“Nothing.”
Yesterday, while taking a bath, Young Ladrinka had another vocabulary question.
“MOM!” he yelled. Â I respond to all screams from the bathtub.
“What is douche?”
“What? Where did you hear that word?”
“My friends and I were yelling skidouche! from Kung Fu Panda and this girl said that skidouche has a curse word in it.”
“Douche is a special medicine for women,” I told him.
“So why is that a curse word?”
“Because,” I explained, “people don’t like medicine and it’s not nice to be called that. Â Would you like it if I called you Cough Syrup?”
“That’s so weird,” Young Ladrinka said. Â “You say it means medicine and Dad says that it means ‘jerk’.”
So this week, we had Dick and Douche. I can’t wait to see what next week holds, as we work our way through the alphabet.
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{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: sftc
February 19, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Ah, yes. Like I always say: So many synonyms for “jerk,” so little time.
This made my day.
Twitter: goldengirlblogs
February 19, 2010 at 12:51 pm
great post. thanks for the laughs. so far i have not had to deal with cuss words and my 5 y.o. i will keep your post in mind when the time comes. my son has heard “douche” from conversations he overheard about Tiger Woods. luckily, he hasn’t asked what it means. anyway, did you watch his statement this morning? take care.
Where I come from (down the street), “douche” is another name for shower. Don’t ask.
Twitter: vboykis
February 19, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Dush (pronounced douche) actually does mean shower in Russian, which, I suspect, opens up a whole new layer of complications for Marinka and Young Ladrinka.
That is so freakin hilarious. Oh, sorry not that your kid has a potty mouth, but just the whole conversation. I think you totally handled it well.
Did you ever have these conversations with your daughter? Just wondering if it’s a boy thing…
Twitter: marymoo24
February 19, 2010 at 2:27 pm
Jerk, penis, medicine, what’s the diff, I say?
My son asked me the other day if I was a virgin.
So awesome.
Twitter: AmazingGreis
February 19, 2010 at 3:17 pm
LMAO! Jerk, it’s such a versatile word, with so many different synonyms! 🙂
HAHA I just have to say I think you have the best sense of humor and I look forward to your posts every day… you never fail to make my laugh. Now I think it’s time for my blog to start leaning from pensive to funny…
Now, look-I was on the phone with my professor when I was trying to read this and I ‘lost reception’ and had to disconnect. Curses!
Twitter: grandemocha
February 19, 2010 at 4:12 pm
You should write a children’s book, “Dick and Douche”.
Twitter: Mamabirddiaries
February 19, 2010 at 4:16 pm
It’s obvious that you are now cursing yourself for not referring to yourself and husband as Douche and Dick, rather than Marinka and Husbandrinka on this blog. How could you have been so short sighted?
Does husbandrinka think everything is a synonym for jerk? Or is that his answer to everything?
Twitter: Carolynonline
February 19, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Thrown under the bus by Kingfu Panda. Who knew.
ABCD…E, not so bad…F uhoh. At least he skipped C. The c word is my least favorite. Although, it is a nice compliment to dick. Since it means vagina. And jerk.
I think you need characters for every name he comes up with. Show him someone on the street and say, “See, son, now here is a douche….” Children have visual memories. Good parenting skills? Oh baby yeah, I got ’em….
Twitter: Sweet_Life
February 19, 2010 at 9:05 pm
What you fail to be pondering is: when exactly is he asking Husbandrinka these things, and is HE subject to being summoned with yelling? Or has Young Ladrinka learned to assume that all things mean “Jerk” to Husbandrinka? And when will he start asking your daughter? Because I’m pretty sure she covered “dick” LAST week.
Ach! I hate that screaming from room to room thing! My son is always shouting “MAMA!”, then when I drag my ass in there, all he has to say is something about a Pink Panther episode he saw two days ago, or some such thing. At least questions about dicks and douches are worth getting up and walking to the other room for.
Dick is my all-time favorite curse word. When someone pisses you off there is nothing more satisfying than calling them a DICK.
Douche is good, too.
ANYONE can use lame cusses like fuck and shit. Those are for AMATEURS. Your kids are going to be pros. I can tell.
The eloquence of cursing is an art.
BTW, I gave you an award, knowing that you only receive them if they are chocolate. Does that make me a jerk, douche or a penis?
English is such a beautifully rich language.
Twitter: Issascrazyworld
February 20, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Is he in third grade? I just explained douche to Morgan the other day. Where do they hear it? Oh wait, TV. Crap.
Twitter: hotcomestodie
February 20, 2010 at 6:11 pm
This post was hilarious. “6th anniversary of our agreement.” Genius.
Twitter: MommysMartini
February 20, 2010 at 11:43 pm
I have no cure for the screaming across the house thing, which I have tried (and failed miserably) to keep my children from doing. If it makes you feel any better, though, my three year old managed, while babbling a bunch of nonsense words in a tuneless song of her own making, to insert an emphatic word “BITCH!” somewhere in the middle of the string of syllables. Since she appeared unaware of what she’d just said, Husband and I chose to ignore it. While simply means we are in denial, I think. At least you’re not in denial.
Oh my! This is hilarious! This kid is relentless. But very curious and precocious! I don’t know what I’m going to do when my son starts asking me those questions. I really enjoyed your honest responses though!
Twitter: michellejoni
February 21, 2010 at 5:31 pm
You are so on point! Way to handle the sitch like pro.
Although this blog entry was priceless as always, you had me at Millionaire Matchmaker. Every time her match statistics come up on the screen, it makes me crazy, because in almost every episode the final words are: Dick and Douche have sworn never to speak again in this world and/or the hereafter.
I feel so vindicated.