I Think from Now On We'll Just Call it a Yoo Hoo

I debated whether I should put this story on the blog, but my mother made me promise that I would. Here’s my warning: this story acknowledges that my son, Eamon Wolfe, is indeed a boy with all the requisite boy parts. There is nothing graphic, but if you find yourself easily offended by medical terminology, you might want to skip this entry.

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Eamon is two years old. He’s talking more and more, and wanting to know what everything is called. I’m the daughter of a nurse practitioner, so we have a rule in our house that we use the correct names for all body parts. I always thought this was a mature and responsible parenting choice, and never regretted it. Until today.

Another thing about having a two year old is that Eamon desperately wants to be independent. He’s a Big Boy, and as such he thinks that he deserves all the privileges afforded to Big Boys, like the right to eat only Frosted Mini-Wheat cereal for days on end, drive the car, or at least not have to constantly hold my hand in public places.

It’s the last privilege that often becomes a struggle. Eamon does not WANT to hold my hand. But he also doesn’t often want to stay where I can see him.

Today we got into our age-old argument in Subway.

It started innocently enough. Eamon walked in holding my hand, sweet and amiable as could be. But the man in front of us was ordering 3 subs…and apparently had never heard of the various meats, cheeses, and vegetables before because he had to have everything explained to him.

Eamon got bored.

Then he spotted it.

A Lion King poster.

He desperately wanted to go see that Lion King poster, across the restaurant, by the door, where I couldn’t keep an eye on him while also ordering my sub. He pulled away from me and started to run to the poster.

I told him to come back. Reluctantly, he did so.

But in protest, he then lay down on the floor and refused to move as the line moved up.

I hissed at him to get up.

He ignored me.

So I played the I'm Bigger and Stronger Than You card, and picked him up so that he was sitting on my hip. Even though he struggled, I held onto him and explained quietly to him that he made a bad choice so now he had to put up with the consequence. But he’s a big kid, and the more he struggled, the tighter I held him to keep from dropping him.

“Wanna get DOWN!” he protested.

“No,” I hissed again, repeating my mantra about choices and consequences, holding him tighter.

And that’s when he played a card I quite frankly never expected, and no parenting book or blog had prepared me for it.

“OW!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “MY PENIS! MY PENIS HURTS! MOMMY, YOU HURT MY PENIS!”

Everyone in the restaurant stared at us.

I put him down immediately.

We paid and walked quickly out the restaurant, one of us far more mortified than the other.

But he held my hand and walked nicely the rest of the time.



So I guess we both learned a very important lesson.

We'll call this one a draw.