Nipped in the Bud

Harper has all sorts of "skeeter bites" on her legs and arms. She spends time counting them and showing them off to anyone who will look. The other day she was sitting on my lap with no shirt on while counting her skeeter bites, and looked at her chest and tummy to see if she had any there.

I should add here that I hate the word "nipples". When I was in middle school we had to read out loud in health class, and I got the section where I had to say- in front of a class of 7th graders- nipples. I hated the word before then, but I think that really sealed the deal.

So Harper looks at these two unusual patches of flesh on her chest, and asks "what's that? what is that on my chest?"

Maybe because of my disdain for the word, and my reluctance at hearing it come out of the mouth of a two year old, I couldn't decide if I actually wanted to tell her what they were. I've never been a parent to use proper terminology for body parts with little kids. I'm sure I'm harming them in some way, but I don't really care, because I don't want to hear anyone other than a gynecologist say "vagina", and even then it makes me uncomfortable.

So I asked her "hmm, what do you think they are?"

And she thought for a minute, and said "I think it's schmutz. One, two schmutz", and I laughed out of relief that I got a cute story as opposed to having to say the word nipple.

The next day we were at the pool, and I'm watching Harper from a few feet away have a conversation with one of the dads that was sitting in the pool. She was looking at him pretty closely, and as I walk over to stop her from interrogating the poor man, she leans over and pets the man on his tummy, which is already weird and bordering on inappropriate.

And as I'm a step away, she reaches up and grabs his nipples, and tells him "Look! You got schmutz, too!"