Such a dreadful word it cannot even be repeated

Dust, dust.  Wow.  It’s been a while.  Something happened last week though and my mom encouraged me (rightfully) that I must record it.  So here it goes.

In Thomas’ class the teacher tracks their daily behavior on a color chart with clothes pins/clips.  If they do something good (as an individual or as a group), she might tell them to move their clip up.  Everyone starts on green every day.  It can be moved up one spot to blue, then a lighter blue, then purple (and purple is apparently the magical land that few every reach).  Alternately, bad behavior drops the clip down.  The first decrease is yellow, then orange and on down to red (which might lead to a trip to the principal or something). 

So last Thursday Thomas came out of school dragging his feet and with his head dropped, looking quite sullen.  He came over to me and buried his head in my abdomen.  I leaned down and asked if he was okay.  He sadly replied a quiet “yes.”  I asked if someone did something to him or hurt his feelings. “No,” he sheepishly replied.  Then I realized it must be the clip.  I asked him if he had his clip dropped and he got teary.  He mumbled something about how he was trying to be funny and he promised he wasn’t trying to be mean.

Over the next few minutes I managed to get a few more details.  He and a few other boys were playing with some girls at recess and in an effort to be “funny,” the boys called the girls a word that he could not repeat.  Thinking this must be something really obscene, I told him we would talk privately when we got home so he didn’t teach his brother any bad behavior.  Oh, and that was the second bad behavior of the day.  His clip had already been moved to yellow because he was talking during work time.   My chatty boy is always talking.

When we got home I called him into my bedroom and we sat next to each other on the couch.  I asked him to tell me what happened and he started bawling his eyes out.  “Mommy, I promise you I was trying to be funny; I wasn’t trying to be mean!”  I asked him what he said and he just kept going on and on about how he couldn’t tell me.  “I just can’t do it! You are going to be so mad at me, and I promise I wasn’t trying to be mean!”  He was sobbing now and the mystery word was clearly becoming that which could not be spoken.

I begged him to tell me.  He said he just couldn’t do it.  He was clearly ashamed.  He said, “I’m so mad at myself!”  I asked him if he called them fat or ugly or something like that.  “No, Mommy!  I promise!”  I asked him if he said a bad word and he said no.  I was utterly perplexed.

I started telling him that I was almost sure whatever he said was not as bad as he thought it was because as long as he didn’t say a bad word or insult the girls with a mean word, it really couldn’t be that bad.  But still, he would not tell me.  I begged some more.  He’d start to say something and then start weeping again.

Finally my curiosity was killing me.  I asked if I got him some paper if he could write down the word.  After some thought and consideration, he agreed.  So I got some paper and a pencil for him and left the room.  I told him to call me when he was ready for me to return.  A minute later he called me back.  When I got to the room he was hiding under the covers of my bed.  The paper was laying on the sofa.

I picked up the paper, almost dreading what horrifying word I was about to read.  And then I read it.  I had to hold back my laughter with every fiber of me.

The word….was “immature.”  Seriously.  I said it out loud, “Immature?”  He cried out, “Yes mommy, but I promise! I promise I wasn’t being mean.”  “Ummm, okay. Do you know what it means?” I asked. “Yes! It means acting younger than you are.”

I honestly wasn’t even sure how to reply.  I told him if it hurt the girls feelings he has to respect their right to feel how they do, but that it really wasn’t an awful thing to say.

But despite the fact that I minimalized it and tried to reassure him that it wasn’t that bad, he repeated the entire dramatic episode when his Daddy got home and asked how his day was.  I had already quietly told Trey the whole story when he got home (Thomas had run up the stairs and shut himself in his room when he heard his Dad’s car come in the garage).  But Trey acted like he didn’t know, but told Thomas he had to actually say the word if he wanted to go to his friend’s birthday party the next day.  Thomas cried and wailed for at least 10 minutes and insisted that he just could not say the word out loud.

Seriously, some days parenting is tough…and some days you are just trying hard not to laugh and seemingly belittle the things that get your children all worked up.  While part of me was sad to see him so clearly upset when his dad was trying to get him to tell him the story, the other part of me was fighting the laughter.  I had to keep putting my head on the dinner table.

Immature.  Or as he spelled it, “imature.”  Seriously.  Trey was a bit incensed that he got in trouble for it.  Trey’s reaction when Thomas finally said the word out loud. “Really?  That’s it?  Immature?  Well you were right.  Girls are immature.”  HA!