My son’s mouth

It seems that many adventures hang upon the wild waggings of Mattias’  – my four-year-old son’s – tongue. Three examples from the last week come to mind.

I’ve warned him more than once that his confrontational nature and fearless tendency to get up in people’s faces could easily lead to him getting popped in the face. I suppose he’s more of a learn-by-doing kind of kid. Last weekend, he was in the back of the car with his friend, Vaughan, and they started to fight over a toy. Though it was Vaughan’s toy, Mattias decided to explain to him, in no uncertain terms, why it was now going to be his toy.

The next thing we knew, both boys were wailing, and Mattias was covered in red from a profusely bleeding nose, brought on by the fist of said friend coming into close and rapid contact with said nose. He had been on his way to a birthday party, but looked like a horror movie victim and had to change. By the time he calmed down, however, he decided it looked cool and wanted to keep his bloody clothes on to show all of his friends. We decided not to go that way.

The next moment came when I picked him up from school recently. I’m not sure what went down at school, but he felt compelled to explain to me all of the “potty words” he should never say.

“They’re bad words, those potty words, dad. You know?” he said. “I should never say words like weiner, poop, butt and fart, dad. Never.”

Thanks son for your imminent prudence and restraint.

Finally, I took him to lunch since he was being (relatively) good, and as he tends to do, he wandered up to new folks and introduced himself. I figure that, as long as he understands boundaries and stays close, it’s good social conditioning.

I should mention at this point that one of his favorite hobbies lately is mimicking famous lines fro old movies, accents and all. We get a good laugh out of it and he gets to be center-stage. At one point at lunch, he walked up to a big, tattooed, pierced guy and raises his hand in the air and says, with a completely straight face:

“Hey, you crazy mook, you talkin’ to me?”

The guy looked like Mattias had just kicked him in the knee. He stood there,  stunned and mute, and Mattias ran off to play.

That’s my boy.