Over the last 2 weeks Leah's vocabulary appears to have entered the explosive stage that we were warned may happen once they've mastered around 50 different words and animal sounds. She's now happy to have a go at any word we ask her to try (today's entertainment came courtesy of orange and elephant). However we know we're only a heartbeat away from our lovely girl embarrassing us verbally as well as physically - the raging tantrums are well underway and the immunity is building up very very quickly. I've just been "talking" on Facebook to one of Leah's best pal Ruby's moms and was inspired to blog about my dilemma.
Leah is very proud of her newly mastered words and has recently become fond of saying 'wee' every time her father disappears to the loo with Time magazine. After weighing up the options I figured that was probably one of the better scenarios and I've decided not to correct her for now. But I do realise that we are on borrowed time and sooner or later we're going to have to label body parts not covered by the 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' song (which she loves of course).
So my dilemma is, what do I do? All the rage in SF is to be anatomically, biologically and medically correct and to use the correct terminology. Now I have no religious affiliations whatsoever but I always remember my mum laughing at me as I tried to completely hide myself under an enormous beach towel when changing into my swimsuit aged 7 or something. 'You're such a prude' she'd tell me before I was really sure what a prude was, hell I'm not sure I knew what a prune was but I figured they must be related. So perhaps there's a latent puritan in there somewhere that just isn't relishing my little girl shouting out 'vagina' in public, and let's face it, Leah's not the quietest child. However nor can I stomach the cutesy cutesy words that are used over here but if I resort to British words 'tuppence' or god forbid 'fanny' it's only going to cause confusion in the long run. So for the time being it's 'bits and pieces' or, and this started as a bit of a joke but has stuck, 'ladybits' for the time being.
Any advice???
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2 comments:
I am a believer in the correct word, so we went with vagina. Zoë says "gina" (not "geena"!) instead, and actually does not say it loud or at untoward moments, although she is happy to announce to anyone when she or anyone else has done a wee or a poo. We don't make a big deal of it (vagina), but as you say, at least we are avoiding confusion in the long run. Not looking forward to having to explain "penis" at some point though ;-)
Ha! Being a biologist I went with the actual correct term of vulva. Her dad has confused her by using this word interchageably with the brand name of a popular Swedish car!
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