Aaron the Contrarian

When Doug and I got married, my pastor made some reference in our wedding ceremony to Doug as someone “who never met an argument he didn’t like” or something to that effect. It is looking as if Aaron might be heading down a similar path…

A while ago, I made the decision that the word “butt” would not be used by our kids quite yet. As Mercy will be quick to tell you: “We don’t say ‘butt’. We say ‘bottom.'” It is usually Doug or me who slips and uses the forbidden word, and Mercy is quite rigorous in pointing out our mistake. She will even go so far as to try to get us to use bottom in place of but, as in: “Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is bottom a dream.” While at first a little amusing, this quickly became tiresome and we have since taught her about the difference between the two kinds of butts/buts.

It was sometime on our recent road trip when someone said “butt” in the van and Mercy quickly jumped in with her “we don’t sat butt, we say bottom” response. At which point, Aaron turned toward her in his carseat and with this devilish grin said as loudly as he could: “BUTT!” This totally irked Mercy, and with a stern look she corrected him: “BOTTOM.” This only encouraged the Baron, and with a giant grin he shouted: “BUTT!” raising Mercy’s indignation even further: “BOTTOM!” This went on for some time, with Aaron totally amused with himself and at his sister’s angst, and Mercy growing increasingly exasperated. Probably a fairly insightful glimpse into our future…

So the other night, Doug grilled burgers on our little front porch, and we all sat outside enjoying the coolness of early evening. Skateboards are all the rage in our neighborhood right now (which still kind of amuses me for some reason), and every time a skateboarder would come whizzing down the street, I would look at Aaron and say: “Skateboard!” And every time he would look right at me and shout: “Sailboat!” One of his favorite books is a book full of pictures of “things that go” and there is a skateboard and a sailboat in that book. I figured that he was honestly confusing two words that have some similarity (for a one year old), so each time he said sailboat I would correct him: “Skateboard”, I would repeat. To which he would reply with his signature grin: “Sailboat!”

Today, we were sitting on the couch with the windows open, and I heard a skateboard coming down our street. One of Aaron’s favorite things to do is talk about all the noises he hears outside (sirens, trucks, airplanes, etc.), so I turned to him and said, excitedly: “SAILBOAT!” He looked at me and I swear he smirked as he shouted: “SKATEBOARD!”

And like his Dad, he is just so darn cute that all I can do is laugh.