Terdbucket

Oh the "Kindergarten tales" I experience on Fridays at the lunch table with Kendall. I knew someday this one would come back to bite me in the backside, I just thought it'd be much later in life, not in kindergarten.

A couple years ago Kendall decided to start calling me "mama". Now if you're one of my siblings, you know how taboo it was to ever call my mom that. She hated it. Call her mom, mommy, mother, hot stuff, whatever, just do not call her mama. She said it sounded hillbillyish and she just hated the sound of it. And so, after I became a mom, I inherently learned to hate the name as well. One day, out of the blue, Kendall decided to start calling me mama. The more I protested, the more she used that name, despite my requests to be called hot stuff (just kidding, I mean mom). So one day I told her if she was going to call me mama, I was going to call her terdbucket. And so it was. She would call, "Mamaaaa!" And I'd politely answer, "yes terdbucket?" It took a few weeks, but eventually she stopped. Some of my friend's questioned my parenting approach but, whatever.

Now fast forward to the present day in the lunch room at Kendall's school. As Kendall was reaching into her lunch box, she asked me something and called me mama. She looked up as surprised as I was to hear her say that and we both just smiled. Then she turned to the rest of her class and smiling said, "My mom use to call me terdbucket if I called her mama." Unfortunately this was the one day that another mom decided to eat lunch with her child and was sitting right across from us. She sat up a little straighter and cocked her head a little to the side and gave it a little shake in disapproval or disgust. One kid piped up, "What is a terd?" Kendall was all too eager (and ready) with her reply. "It's poop", she said with a smile, quite pleased with the opportunity to use the word poop in a social setting and at the lunch table no less. Another kid chimed in, "So your mom called you a poop bucket?" Kendall - "Yep." One little girl - "I call my mom mama....but she doesn't call me poop bucket, she calls me cupcake." So in an effort to salvage some of my "not-getting-mother-of-the-year-award-yet-again" pride, I pulled out a mini size candy bar for Kendall and said so sweetly, "I brought you an extra treat!" To which she so sweetly replied, "No thanks mom, that's not very good for me." Nice, who's the mom again?

Well, she doesn't call me mama anymore....

Wedgies

When school first started, Kendall began telling me about this boy in her class who has a lot of wedgies. I said, "Kendall, how would you know if he had a wedgie?" She said, "Because I can see it." Ok, at this point I'm thinking the poor little boy is probably wearing shorts a little too snug for him, you know Op style, and when he stands up they're probably just stuck up in his crack a little bit. And so I say to my very perceptive daughter, "That's kind of gross, just don't look anymore." She shrugged her shoulders, and said okay.
I only ever heard about wedgie boy one other time. It was a couple months later when I casually asked her after school one day who she played with at recess. She named the usual's, and then real excitedly said, "Oh and remember the boy with a lot of wedgies? He played tag too! He still has a lot of wedgies mom, but I try not to see them."
So last Friday, I had lunch with Kendall before teaching Junior Achievement in Bryson's class. We're sitting at the lunch table and the cutest little boy is sitting right across from us. He has this big grin on his face as he eats his bologna sandwich. Kendall then points and exclaims, "Mom, that's Jackson, the boy with a lot of wedgies!" He just smiles. I quietly say, "Okay, let's not say that in front of him." She says, "but he doesn't even know. Huh Jackson, you don't even know you have a lot of wedgies?!" He just smiles, shrugs his shoulders all the while swinging his legs under the table and eating his bologna sandwich. I give Kendall "the look" and she protests saying, "but mom he has wedgies all over his face, how am I 'pose to not look. And he doesn't even know, 'cause I ask him, 'Jackson, how come you have wedgies all over your face?' Then it dawns on me....FRECKLES! Hello!! Poor Jackson probably does know he has freckles on his face but didn't know about the "wedgies". I can only imagine the conversations going on in his house about the girl that is so bothered by the fact that he doesn't even know he has wedgies!