"MOM!!!!! Sam said the P WORD!!!!!"

Good lord. I get this all the time now - really - all day - every day. They are testing boundaries big time. They complain about The P word, but also the S word, the D word and now the middle finger. Yes, the middle finger. But first let's talk about the P word. "Pee" - you know, the stuff that your body doesn't need - the pee that goes into the potty? Yes, for some reason my kids think that it's a bad word. So, today we talked about the difference between impolite words - pee, poop, etc. - and words that I never want to hear from their mouths. After briefly explaining the difference and getting some acknowledgement that they were not only listening but that they understood, Max says "So I saw in the dictionary - at least I think it was a dictionary. You know the one where it has the words with the same meanings?" "You mean a thesaurus?" "Yes, so it was right next to the word for donkey. And it starts with an A." "Well, Max, the only time I want to hear that it when we're at the zoo and a grown up is saying it. But never from you - coming out of your mouth - that's a bad word." We are supposed to hit up the zoo over Spring Break, and you wanna take bets on whether or not he tells his brothers what that word is?

Sigh...I'll tell you about the middle finger another day.