Squishing Dinosaurs

I have been the father of a girl for almost 9 years now.  3 years ago we got a second girl and a short time after that, we got a boy.  I’m told that the challenging years with girls are still yet to come and I well believe it.  I came from a family of 2 children, both of them boys.  Growing up with girls was foreign concept to me, come to think of it, I think my mom was outnumbered in our house of her and us three guys (me, my brother and my dad).  In any case, it has been a continual learning experience to be blessed with little girls growing up into young ladies in the household.

In my few short years being the dad of girls, I’ve learned a different vocabulary.  It’s not one that is all fluffy and flowery, but in just raising children, you have childish words replace the formal words you would have once used.  Even your slang words often have to change to more childish words, one, so they don’t use the slang words that may be inappropriate for their age, and two, so that they can actually understand what you are talking about.  Mixing back and forth between vocabularies is not a good approach either, since it only leads to more confusion, both to you and to the child.  One might put forth that such switching would be similar to learning a second language, but I’m not sure that can be scientifically proved out.

In any case, words are cleaner with girls, possibly more cute.  You spend much more time dealing with clothes and accessories.  Considerable attention is given to hairstyles and grooming.  You have words such as curls and glossy and pink and sparkly and fluffy and furry and cuddly and cute and adorable and favorite.   Soft words, cute words.  You even have words for bodily functions.  Urinating or going pee won’t do, you have to call it Tee-Tee, which I have no idea why, but that’s the word.  Having gas or passing gas is referred to by the ladies as tummy noises.  Burping almost never occurs.  Hiccups bring laughter.  Runny noses require tissue and instructions to blow.

Now, with the entrance of a boy into this situation, everything changes.  Xander is almost 2 and close to being potty trained already.  His nose runs often.  He was prone to drooling but since his teeth have largely come in, the drooling is diminished.  He is more destructive than his sisters, intent on crushing and collapsing anything in his path.  He body slams himself.  He throws himself backwards on the couch.  He is louder vocally.  He sings, he laughs, he squeals.  Not that the sisters don’t make noise, but with Xander it is more.

With Xander, the words have changed.  A runny nose now also has references to boogers.  This is not my doing, but external influences.  He smells like a puppy and will tell you as much.  He will tell you that he has to go potty and he will tell you loudly that he has to Tee-Tee, only because he know that is what his sisters would say, only he is amplified.  Bath time is quite wet for everyone, he splashes and sloshes quite crazily, seemingly intent upon making sure that you have been bathed as well.  You can imagine the subtle differences between this boy and his two older sisters.  He has a mark to make on the world, a world that has already been marked by his sisters.  He seems to want to correct this in any way that he can.

All that said, it is natural to assume that many words would change.  Instead of gorgeous  or beautiful, there is handsome.  Instead of cute or pretty, there is dashing and spiffy, rough and tumbly.  And instead of “tummy noises”, there is “squishing dinosaurs”.  How might this word transition take place you might ask?  Well, it’s an interesting story.

The younger ones were in the bath together playing while Brandi and I watched them play and we were talking.  That’s ok when they are small if you keep an eye on them.  We got Kiana out of the bath and then had Xander clean up the toys.  He had several small dinosaurs in the tub, the cheap, sort of hollow plastic rubber kind that you are nervous have lead paint from china in them.  He was putting them under water and sqeezing them and then release them and then they would fill up with water at which time he would bring them above water and sqeeze them to squirt water on his sister or us.  As he started cleaning up the toys, there was still some water in them that he was trying to get out.  Since I wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing, the sound made me think that he had passed gas or something.  As I looked at him, I realized what he was doing with the dinosaur, squeezing it and making noise with it.  I asked him if he was squishing a dinosaur and he said yes.  I laughed.  As Brandi and I laughed about it, and talked about it in the coming days, “squishing a dinosaur” became our young man’s replacement for tummy noises.  It is applicable to so many situations. See below:

• Good job Xander (sitting on the potty) you squished a dinosaur.
• Wow, it smells like someone squished a dinosaur.
• Did you just squish a dinosaur?
• I think a dinosaur was just squished.
• was a dinosaur squished in your pants?

Now Xander looks up at you from the potty, grunts to pass gas and succeeds.  He smiles his goofy grin, gets a look of surprise and says to you “dinosaur?!”.  Or maybe it’s “hey Xander, did you go poopie?”  Xander replies “No, I just squished a dinosaur.”  And 99% of the time, you know what?  He’s right. Silly things that make me smile.  Funny things that help you cope with the more serious side of life.  I am thankful for these breaks.

Have you squished a dinosaur today?