If you’ve been around here long, you know I love to write about my 9-year-old son Colin. He’s fabulous: very clever and extremely sweet. It takes a lot to phase him. He’s also a little unusual. A bit quirky. But he tells it like it is. We have some of the most hilarious conversations. (When he’s not embarrassing me in public.) This is another one of those conversations.
The other day we were getting ready to leave the house, and I needed to take the dog out to go potty.
Me: *whistles at dog*
Dog: *lifts head, tells me “Fuck you” with her eyes, lowers head*
Colin: I don’t think she wants to go out.
Me: Well, she has to. We’re about to leave. She’ll be very sorry if she doesn’t go out now when a turtle head is poking out later.
Colin: Huh?
Me: She’s gonna have a turtle head poking out later.
Colin: What are you talking about?
Me: You’ve never heard “turtle head poking out”?
Colin: No.
Time stopped. How could my son not know what that expression meant? Had I failed as a mom? I had to rectify the situation. (Yes, I totally chose “rectify” because it reminds me of the word “rectum.”)
Me: Well, you know when you have to poop really badly that it feels like a little bit is coming out of your butt?
Colin: Yeah …
Me: That’s like a turtle head poking out of its shell.
Colin: WHAT?
Me: You know? Poop poking out of your butt? Turtle head poking out of its shell? Same thing.
Colin: I don’t get it… That must be an idiom.
I tried. I really did. He still doesn’t get it, but at least he knows it’s an idiom, right?
P.S. We may refer to him as Sheldon from time to time.
Photo Credit: ratoca / 123RF Stock Photo
12 Responses
Never mind, Foxy, only by occasionally failing can we move forward.
Another descriptive phrase, as made famous in one of the Chevy Chase Family Vacation movies, “prairie-doggin’ it”!
Reminds me of that road race movie where the little girl screams, “Come on, dad–I’m prairie dogging it here!”
Umm yeah tell Colin/Sheldon I am 3 and never heard of it either. LOL
Yes, I totally chose “rectify” because it reminds me of the word “rectum.”—-hahahaha! If our children learn one thing, it should be this!
HAHAHAH…god, I love your family. You never fail to entertain me. What a glorious group of people you have.
I’m quite a few years older than your son and had never heard the expression either. I thought it was going to be something completely different.
And as soon as I read “dog” I thought of the time a little boy pointed at a male dog’s, er, between his legs and said, “Look! He’s got his lipstick out!”
I feel so educated now.
My ex-husband’s family called it Prairie Dogging. Never heard turtle head, but I understand it.
You gotta follow it up with “I’ve got a crap on deck that’d choke a donkey,” in a Scottish accent. Context is everything. 😀
ha ha ha at least he knows now, just in case it’s ever mentioned in the school yard!
I LOVE it when my boys gain insight… from me.
Lately, tho…. I’m the one gaining insight 🙂
I said, “…drop the log” in my Algebra class (logs…you know… little numbers in parenthesis in an equation…yeah, me neither. Algebra should come with a prescription to Prozac when you’re over 40 🙂
And….. apparently that means ‘to poop.’
🙂
My parents completely failed me. I didn’t learn the turtle idiom until I was in my 20s. And then, I learned it in the worst way possible: in a Whoopie Goldberg and Mr. Bean movie (Rat Race, if you’re interested.)
Just. Why where my parents the worst? Why?