That said, I have to admit that some crude and rude things will be learned and TAUGHT by myself and I wont be able to help it. It will be. After long thinking I have come to the conclusion that the following, when the time comes, will be taught to my kids even against my better judgment not to.
1. Raspberry
This first happened already several years ago. My first daughter was only three years old and couldn't do much motor wise with her mouth or fingers. So it was a big thrill to teach her how to blow a raspberry. At the time vocal sentences had just begun, but she couldn't even say all the letters of the alphabet, like L and forget about saying things like "thing" and th words. So to teach her a rather crude, but tongue twister was a victory. It was a Pyrrhic victory as it turned out. Something I shouldn't have taught her. It turned against me.
She did the raspberry so much and to everyone, but when she did it to Grandma, "No I don't want that Grandma, pftthh" (or however you spell the sound of a raspberry) I had to yell at her hard and tell her she DOES NOT give Grandma the raspberry, not to mention people in the stores or walking down the street in the town. Well.... I had to teach her. But I think she has forgotten it by now and I wont teach it again.
2. Arm Fart.
These are really for boys and I actually learned how to arm fart from my older brother who was much older and thus a seasoned veteran, a professional, at arm farts.
Boys love farts. Well, lets face it, all little kids love farts. It is a source of joy for all toddlers and young kids (kids is defined loosely here, say age 5 to 15, or 65). Girls at some point become too polite to fart, maybe when they go off to college or start dating older boys. Women do not know what a fart is and will send you to the doghouse if you suggest that you heard them fart. Its not possible. But boys love a fart, kind of the way drunken teenagers love to burp on the street that stops traffic several blocks away. Or a two am burp on a deserted street which shuts up all the barking dogs not to mention stops all the church clocks from chiming.
The arm fart is so satisfying because you can sit there like a chicken without its head, running all over the place with your hand under your arm flapping your arm and producing joyful squeaks till the cows come home. Seriously, once you start doing it, it is hard to stop. My brother the professional would fart out whole nursery rhymes which I remember 40 years (and counting) later.
Though I haven't yet, I am sure the day is coming soon that i will teach my girls how to arm fart. The youngest one couldn't get it yet, so she would probably cry if I tried to teach them today. But one day soon. Rome wasn't built in a day you know. But I am actually still in debate in my head whether I should teach my polite girls the awful crudeness of arm farting.
3. Exploding small milk cartons.
(Wait a sec. I am not referring to the really dumb prank which was big a couple years ago of smashing pretending to fall in a supermarket while carrying gallon jugs of milk and the jugs smash and milk goes all over. I am totally against that, and those were incredibly stupid. )
I have to admit that the memory of exploding milk cartons (after the milk was all drunk, we couldnt waste the milk) in lunch time is one of my fondest memories of grade school. I don't know if they still sell the small milk cartons in school these days. I think they wised up and give the milk out in a glass. We had those little half pint/ 100 ml ptl milk cartons which when empty and smashed upon with your shoe had the capacity to sound like a hand grenade went off. I remember the two lunch ladies gave you hell if they caught you. Sometimes they even sent you to the principals office and a serious penalty was waiting for you. For that reason you had to wait till both lunch monitor ladies were way over on the other side of the room with their backs turned on you or that you were behind a pillar when you did it. Timing was of the essence. You had to sit down quickly and kick the carton away and get your best poker face on before either of them turned in your direction. Difficult when your ears were ringing from the explosion. Ah but such good memories I have of personally exploding milk cartons not once, but several times in one rather mischievous year.
I really want to teach my girls how to explode a milk carton, no doubt about it, rude and crude or not. It is a must. That I have already decided. I only wonder if they still make the cartons. I haven't seen too many around these years. I think the national union of lunch monitors petitioned against them and they have been fazed out. Pity if so.
On the other hand, these days it could be dangerous as people might think it was a bomb going off and maybe there would be a school lock down, the police called, fire engines, basic turmoil, turbulence, cacophony and chaos. I am not too sure I want to be called down to the head of the police and made to pay some huge fine for the national guard being called out. I better think this one through with precision and risk vs reward.
My how times have changed.
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