Joshua is almost four and his intelligence astounds me every day (’cause you know, Bobby and I are a couple of dummies). He’s known all his letters since before he was two, partially because we have a magnetic bathroom wall. Yesssss, the tiles on our bathroom wall are made of metal. I’m not sure what era this is from exactly but it’s both functional and aesthetically pleasing. Yay! Anyhoo, a couple of years ago we got a slew of magnetic alphabet letters for the bathroom wall to entertain educate him while I was in the shower. Recently, thanks to his super-genius and the PBS Kids show Word World, Joshua has begun spelling actual words with said letters, without even asking me how they are spelled! Yesterday when I got out of the shower, he said, “Look Mom, I’m going to spell the word bug.” He then proceeded to find the b,u, and g and put them in the correct order. I was amazed and of course rewarded him with MUCH praise. Then, he asked me how to spell the word “corn.” I helped him sound it out, he spelled it with the letters, and I cheered again. Yay genius boy!
Fast forward to that evening at bedtime. Bobby and Joshua are in the bathroom preparing to brush Joshua’s teeth, and I am in the bedroom putting my PJs on. All of a sudden I hear Bobby calling me so I run to the bathroom. There I see that Joshua has made a new word. I won’t write it here because I don’t want my blog traffic to get perved up, but let’s just say he took the c off of corn and replaced it with a p. “Mommy look!” he cried. “I made p*rn!”
Bobby was already cracking up, and I just collapsed on the floor laughing. Joshua was veeeeery pleased that he had made us laugh and started giggling too. “I made p*rn!” he exclaimed again proudly. (OF COURSE, he has no idea what that means, or that it’s even a real word. He just knows phonics!) I was laughing so hard I was crying. “What are we gonna do?” I asked Bobby, who was no better off than I was. “I don’t know!” he said. He was cracking up so badly I thought he was going to have an asthma attack. Joshua noticed that we were slightly distracted from his spelling efforts, so he took the p away from the orn and said, “Mommy, now I’m gonna build the word p*rn and you’re gonna laugh.” So off I went again, rolling on the floor laughing so hard my stomach hurt. I thought I might be able to distract him with other words. “You can make other words that rhyme with corn, honey. Like worn or born.”
“Or p*rn!” he exclaimed.
(More uncontrollable laughter from his mature, twelve thirty-year-old parents.)
“Forget it,” said Bobby, “I’m just gonna hide all the p’s. ”
“Stupid Word World. Teaching my kid phonics!” I grumbled.
Somehow we all got calmed down, Joshua’s teeth got brushed, and we all went to bed. Bobby and I giggled about Joshua’s new word a while longer, and Bobby took all the p’s off the wall and hid them! Joshua hasn’t mentioned it today at all, but I’m preeeety sure he’s going to remember just in time to tell the babysitter or anyone and everyone at church this weekend that he “made p*rn”. And then, we will really have some ‘splaining to do!
So, stay tuned for that.
ROFL – that’s hilarious! 🙂
and good on ya for censoring your blog. i probably wouldn’t have had the foresight to do that.
Very funny! My 23 month old son loves Word World too!
Funny! Isn’t it amazing how kids have the innate ability to say and spell words they aren’t supposed to? Even if they don’t even know what they mean? Ya, “making porn” isn’t something you want him proclaiming!
I had my nephew Nicky over about a week or so ago, when my sister was in the hospital after delivering his new brother Nathan. He started demanding that I show him “Little Einsteins”. Logically, I figured he wanted to see the picture of Albert Einstein I have mounted on the wall in my walk-in closet, because, well; who doesn’t have a picture of the springy-haired/moustachioed physicist in their closet, right? So, I opened the door and pointed, “There he is,” I said, “probably still working out a unified field theory in his head.” Nicky looked up at me, almost disappointed in his grandparents for having brought this man he called uncle into this world. “C’mon,” he said, with an implied ‘get your head out of your arse’ tone, “I WANT TO SEE ‘Little Einsteins.” And then he began singing this wonderful, catchy tune. I realized then that he was talking about a television show. I turned on the TV and surfed the program guide to no avail. I then took him into the computer room and located the series on iTunes. We downloaded and watched a couple of episodes. I was hooked. This may be one of the greatest shows on television. I giggled like a little school girl when one of the episodes featured my favorite classical composer Franz Schubert. “No way!” I hollered. “If they play ‘Shepard and the Rock’ I’m gonna freak out!” Anyway, I started DVRing ‘Little Einsteins’. If you’ve never seen it, you’ve got to, got to check it out! I mean ‘Word World’ is okay, if you think reading is important – seriously though, with the advent of audiobooks it’s kind of archaic. (Emily knows what I’m talking about. I read her post about books on CD.) P.S. Sorry for the length of this comment.
That IS hysterical. And you are wise not to write out the word. I have a blog that has the word “wife” in the title and you would not believe the searches that reach me. All I have to do is talk about the weather and, well, I’ll leave it to your imagination.
All I can say is… At least it wasn’t my DAUGHTER bragging about making porn!
You mean OUR daughter don’t you dearest??? 🙂
at least he wasn’t rhyming with the word duck. better hide the f’s too… and the s’s… and the d’s….
I dont think I want my teenagers hanging around your kids anymore….
Yeah, remember when I mentioned something about getting together sometime? I’m busy that day! HA!
HaHaHa! I’m sure there’s sound parenting advice out there that says not to laugh at such moments–that it only encourages them–but how could you NOT laugh your butt off at that?!
Oh my, I am really behind in blog reading cause of my little vacation, but this is awesome. Man, I love Word World too. Lily is even more enamored with Super Why. Don’t you just love 4.
Thanks for participating in the Christmas Edition of the Carnival of Family Life. The Carnival will be live at midnight (Pacific time) on December 24, 2007, at Colloquium!
Happy holidays!