Manners at Home?

I have told many of you this story but it is definitely one that must be blogged about. If discussions about bodily functions are something that you're uncomfortable with, you may want to skip this one. :)

We are pretty free with our bodily functions around the house - that's just the way it is with family, at least my family, especially with little kids in the house. Mom exposes herself to feed the baby and bathroom doors stay open often. (They say kids learn by example so we're using that angle for potty training too.) So when it comes to burping and passing gas, the wind just blows where it will so to speak. Well, the other day, Jonah was making a farting sound and we asked, "Jonah did you poopy; do you need to go poopy in the potty?" Jonah replies, "No, I farted." Kelly then says, "Well, what do you say?" And Jonah proudly responds, "Please." We suppressed the urge to totally break out laughing and after quickly regaining composure, Kelly tells Jonah that the correct thing to say is, "Excuse me." Jonah then says, "Xcuse me." And so we find something else that is best taught by example - manners. He's pretty much got "please," "thank you," and "your welcome" down but we still have to work on the nuances of "excuse me."

Barbaric Table Manners

I remember when I was single or married without children and out at a restaurant and a few tables over witnessing a family with a 2 year old who is acting obnoxious and making a huge mess with his food and thinking - "Wow, they really should get control of their child." Well, I have come to the realization that the table has turned and people probably think that of us. The last 6 weeks or so Jonah has really been acting out more and coming up with new habits that I'm not very proud of. Tonight we went out to a Mexican restaurant where kids eat free Mon- Thurs. It all started innocently enough with Jonah dipping the chips in the salsa, sucking the salsa off and redipping the chip - same chip several times. (Papaw would love that one. Jonah likes to do the same thing with french fries in ketchup.) That got boring, so he took a chip and munched it very quickly and systematically and let it fall out of his mouth onto the table - (I think The Cookie Monster may not be the best role model; may have to cover his eyes during that part of Sesame Street from now on.) Then when his plate of quesadilla with rice and beans came, he took the huge spoon they brought with his plate (what were they thinking?) and scooped up a huge spoonful of rice and brought it to his mouth where a small portion went into his mouth and the rest into his lap. He apparently decides he doesn't really like the rice for consumption purposes but enjoys the touch and feel of it and brings other spoonfuls up to his mouth only to touch it to his tongue and spit it back out onto his lap. At one point, Jonah starts picking up the rice and beans with his hands and would have started slinging it if I hadn't intervened with baby wipes and took away his plate of fun. Later he drank some water and then let it slowly pour back out of his mouth -a favorite new past time at every meal these days - his way of playing with water despite having a secure lid on his cup. Needless to say, there was a huge mess of rice sprinkled on the floor around our table and we felt aweful for person who had to clean it up. No doubt she was thinking - "They really should control their child better."
It's funny how we did not teach Jonah any of these behaviors but are faced with the seeming insurmountable task of teaching our brutish boy some table manners. I hope all this gross behavior is typical 2 year old stuff; but I have the sneaking feeling some of it is typical BOY behavior and may last beyond the 'Terrible Twos'.

More Cheese Please

Jonah was watching Sesame Street this morning and they started talking about cheese. Well, he loves cheese so he comes into the kitchen and starts saying cheese. Well I kind of ingnored him to see if he would forget about it. He follows me down the hall and says "cheese" and then "pease." We have been trying to get him to say please for a month. Of course one piece wasn't enough so I asked him to say please for more and he did - it even started to sound more like "please" than "pease." I guess now we can start working on saying "Thank you."