Sunday, June 5, 2011

We are 4!!

The boys turned 4 today!!!  And we celebrated with nearly 30 preschoolers and a bouncehouse/waterslide in our backyard.

And now... it's time for the annual "Cooper Kahn v. The Slide" photos. 







Don't worry --- truth is, for the first time, Cooper actually enjoyed the waterslide.

Speaking of the truth, apparently not all 4-year-olds understand the concept...



Wednesday, June 1, 2011

The Tunis Problem

People ask me all the time: Do the boys have their own secret language?

I've heard rumors that twins can develop their own "twinspeak," but my boys really never have. Until now.

The past few months we've had a problem with potty mouths. "Can we have diarrhea for dinner?" "Pee-nis, pee-nis, pee-nis" (chanted as they congo around the room). You get the point. At first I thought it was a phase. Until the phase didn't stop after a few days. And the boys would feed off each other and seemed to be in competition for who could use the word "penis" at the most inappropriate time and make the others laugh the hardest.  Finally I made threats and told the boys that they could not use these words unless they were in the bathroom.  (That would solve the problem, right? Ha.)  Cooper and Charlie ignored me and continued to get in trouble for their dirty mouths. Zach would run to the bathroom for the sole purpose of shouting out the forbidden words (he's big on rules, that Zach.  And I did say they could use them in the bathroom...)

And then last week the boys kept talking about "tunis." Tunis-this and tunis-that (i.e. "you a tunis!", "hey tunis!", "what are you doing tunis?"), followed by hysterical laughter. This had been going on for several days. And when they were getting ready for their bath one night and talking about their tunises, I realized what they had been doing. Making up a secret language for their potty mouths. Circumventing my rules.

So then I started wondering whether I could/should put them in timeout for use of the word "tunis"?? You can't call your mother a tunis and get away with it... right?  RIGHT??

And at the same time that I am pondering this whole tunis situation, I'm reading the recent (and controversial) book, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. I can only imagine what the tiger mama would have to say about the tunis problem and my parenting skills (her girls were deep into piano lessons and math by age 3. I highly doubt they were singing songs about poop and tunises). But were they making up their own language?  I think not.  That's real talent.











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