I tooted!

Children are honest, bless their little hearts. We love them for it, but sometimes wish they'd learn the art of the little white lie. Like when you're in line and your child says "That's a Big booty, Mama!", and there's nowhere to hide. If only we could teach our little Honest Abes a little discretion.

My son has a fascination with bodily functions (He's a boy. I'm told, that's what they do). It started innocently enough with a simple inquiry about a smell. After that, it was like everything was an attack on his olfactory sense. In fact, some smells were downright offensive to him.

When we were at home and someone passed gas, my son would ask, "What's that smell?" We would tell him that it's not nice to ask that, but he was nothing if not persistent.

So when we were in public and he smelled something a little off-color, he would ask, "What's that smell?" Again, we tried (naively I might add) to explain to him that it's really not polite to ask what that smell is.

We finally made progress while visiting his grandmother. She did what grandmas do and he, of course asked "What's that smell?" She told him she farted. No ifs, ands or buts about it. Just straightforward.

We told her of the plight that we had been experiencing concerning his animal-like sense of smell, and she did the only logical thing for a mother of grown children to do. She turned it around on him.

We went shopping and my son passed gas, his grandmother playfully asked, "What's that smell?" Without missing a beat, my son replied, "ME!!! I tooted! (giggles)".

He still asks what that smell is because he's a boy. But a wise man once said, "He who smelt it, dealt it."