On table manners and otherwise

January 7, 2008 by Barbara.

At some point without discussion, in that magical way of parents, Ken and I decided to start enforcing the rule that Reid ask to be excused from the table before she leaves it. Since she has had the ability to leave on her own, she has generally said, “I’m done,” in a way that implied that she was planning to leave the table if no significant objections were raised. We’ve formalized it lately to a request to be excused. Maybe waiting until now means we are manners-deficient ourselves but I needed to set the scene for my stories.

Reid dutifully now asks, “I be exkwoosed?” often without prompting. I love the way she says “exkwoosed” and will sometimes use Reid’s pronunciation. Ken then has to correct me since we don’t (presumably) want to reinforce little kid talk but should instead model the proper pronunciation. I think this might be the first Reid-word that I’ve been tempted to use.

One night Reid invited Daddy to watch a show with her after supper. He accepted, with barely a sigh, despite the brain numbing effects of tv for tots. When Reid was leaving the table, then, she asked *me* to be excused as is her habbit. She turned to Ken and advised him, “Ask Mama to be exkwoosed.” His reply was something akin to “Not in this lifetime.” In fact, he probably said exactly that.

Reid continues to find potty humour and noises produced by one’s body funny. Once we got the fart/toot issue sorted out, she is pretty good with “exkwoose me” in that particular situation. Burps, though, are eliciting giggles and require prompting. I think Reid is even trying to cause herself to burp. What a little princess we have! Someday maybe she’ll be able to burp the national anthem, dans les deux langues officiels. A mother can dream…

In the spirit of public service announcements,  I must also confess that Reid takes a great interest in things that she deems to be “stinky” and doesn’t hesitate to question whether a person has farted. I’m working on letting her know this isn’t appropriate but 3 year olds are pretty uncivilized. Still, I’m awfully glad that Reid isn’t one of those kids that uses the contents of her diaper to draw on the walls. That would be much, much worse. Remind me if I let the stinky/fart questions get to me.

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