100

For my 100th post I shall talk about farts. If you know me, and perhaps even if you don’t after reading the following, you will know that this is quite out of character for me, but here goes anyway.

For all of my desire for Henry to speak clearly and pronounce things properly, and my attempts at helping him do so, sometimes it is nice that the rest of the world doesn’t understand what my toddler is saying. A little while ago the three of us were having dinner at a favorite local Vietnamese restaurant. It was somewhat busy but no too loud so when Henry had a big fart I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who noticed. I do think that other people overheard when he subsequently yelled loudly “Henry fart!” Thankfully, I am the only one who heard that. Everyone else heard “En-ry art!” or even more likely, they just heard a kid yelling unrecognizable sounds. I am hoping that his social skills will mature as does his vocabulary and pronunciation.

So, I am not a big fan of talking about bodily functions. I’m not that big of a wimp but scatological humor does nothing for me and certain things just bug me. The following is a story my aunt (She is my aunt by marriage and grew up in Amsterdam and drinks a fair amount. I love her.) likes to tell even though it is a story she heard 25 years ago and I am sure none of the actual participants remember the events at all. If I didn’t have a loud, funny, lovable drunk with an amazing accent in my family it would have been lost. The entire story is based on a phone conversation I had with my grandma when I was 5 years old. At the time she lived with us, as did my great grandma who was taking care of my 3 year old sister and I at the time. Apparently I called her at work (she was a county welfare director at the time) to tell her how mad I was at my sister who was following me around making fart noises and saying the word fart. I know I hated this. I am told the conversation was something like this, “grandma, I hate m. she keeps making fart noises. Pffft. Pffft. Make her stop. Now she is saying fart. Can't you do something? She won’t stop. God damn it. I hate that fucking word!” That’s pretty much the whole story with the emphasis on the 5 year old me saying “I hate that fucking word.” Some things don't change.

To round this out and hopefully end my need to ever write about this topic again, I will also tell you that around 4 or 5 I would yell at my sister (or anyone really) for farting and when she challenged me about it I told her that I didn’t fart because I had that part of me removed when I was a baby. I have no idea how long she believed it but I think it was for a very long time. If my family didn’t fear my wrath, they would probably tell that story as well. If my aunt knew about that one, I am sure she would.