A moment later, a little tear-streaked face shouted, “ Mommy, he is my best friend! My BEST friend. and you SMOOCHED him!”

Caught off-guard by his reaction, I glanced at the dark pulpy mass that had been the ant. I looked at David, and then back again at the bug. Sometimes it’s mighty hard to know what to say.

Should I tell David that bugs can’t be best friends with three-year-olds? Hmm, too harsh…

Should I say that the ant carried germs and wanted to put those nasty germs on the yummy sandwich? No, still not enough compassion.

Maybe I should I offer to hold a proper burial and memorial service in the back yard? I could solemnly put the dead ant into a little box, dig a hole, say a prayer, and lay him to rest. We could use crayons to draw a homemade tombstone bearing the epitaph, “Here lies Mr. Ant, David’s best friend, callously crushed by David’s mother, 2008 - 2008.”

All these thoughts fly through my head as my son glares reproachfully at me and puts his hand over the dead bug to guard him.

I decide not to say anything.

Instead I opt for giving a hug. Then I promise never ever to do that again.

I guess I better go throw away the cans of quick-acting bug spray too.

Hmm.

Long pause.

No one says anything, including Monster Boy.

Finally David looks up at me, and his face splits into a grin as he asks, “Did you see him, Mommy? Isn’t he cool!”

Now David can say almost anything, except words beginning with the letter “ T. ”

He gets tongue-tied every time he tries to say “ T ” and substitutes an “ F ” instead.

Three becomes “free.” When asked his age, he cheerfully exclaims, “I’m free, free!” Adorable, right?

Who could have imagined what trouble was coming…

We were riding in the car when my darling suddenly began shouting an expletive. A real four-letter doozy. Shocked, I pulled over and turned around to stare at him. He pointed at a huge 18-wheeler sitting in a parking lot and repeated his X-rated version of the word ‘truck.’

After trying to get him to say it correctly for a week, I gave up.  Embarrassed, I quickly executed an evasive right or left turn whenever I saw a truck in the distance. Especially if we had a guest in the car.  I began to drive with the windows up and the air conditioner on. That way, no one would call Social Services to report us if we stopped at a light and David spotted his favorite type of vehicle.

On a balmy Sunday, we stood in line after church waiting to greet the minister. David, cherubic in his tiny seersucker suit, spotted a fire engine coming down the street. I stiffened as I glanced down at him and saw the smile spread across his face. Overjoyed, he tapped me on the arm and said “Mommy! Truck, Truck!” Only the ” T ” was pronounced as an “ F. ”

My cheeks burned as red as the fire engine. I ignored him. Puzzled by this sudden lack of interest from his mother, he turned to our fellow parishioners and announced,  “Look! Red truck!!!  Fast, fast truck!” My, his “T”s sounded just like “F”s. I glanced back at the street. Darn it! More fire trucks were approaching, and I heard David holler, “Three trucks!” Oh, how those “T”s sounded like “F”s.

Heads swiveled. Benevolent chuckles surrounded us as I grabbed my child, dashed for the car, and muttered apologetically to anyone who would listen, “He means ‘truck.’ He’s trying to say ‘truck.’” He was still shouting, “Bye-bye, truck” as I fastened him in his car seat.

I hurried home to consult the shelf of child-rearing books I’d purchased. After perusing all the indexes, I was stumped. There was not a single entry about “T”s that sounded like “F”s. Surely I couldn’t be the only person who had experienced this developmental snafu.

That night I lay awake staring at the ceiling and wondered how I could let people know David wasn’t acquainted with the slang word for fornication? It seemed so unfair –- especially since I had conscientiously quit swearing when I became a mother (no easy feat for me).

An idea popped into my head, and I reached for my laptop thinking, “Thank heavens for the Internet and 24-hour cyberspace shopping.” I quickly found an online t-shirt company, and I ordered a tiny blue shirt onto which I had emblazoned “HE MEANS ‘TRUCK’!” in large block letters.

There, I thought. That will explain everything.

The shirt arrived, and David happily slipped it on. To my surprise, other mothers didn’t laugh. They looked at me with raised eyebrows and pursed lips that signaled disapproval.

Strangers in the grocery store read his T-shirt, and then stared at me in horror. Friends averted their gaze. Oh well, maybe not so funny.

Happily, David soon began to pronounce his “T”s clearly, and the shirt was no longer needed. I’ve kept it as a souvenir. Since then, his enunciation has improved dramatically. He’s three and a half now, and even when he invents words, they’re usually funny.

Last night he announced that his favorite dinosaur to be the “Stega-dino-saurus.” Now that would look good on a T-shirt!  I closed my eyes and pictured letters spelling out this whimsical new creature. They stretched all the way across his chest around his left side and wrapped around his tiny back. Yes, that would look good on a T-shirt.

I love words. Always have. I was one of those nerdy kids who hid under the covers late at night gleefully reading by the glow of a flashlight. Stories whisked me away to magical lands like Oz and Arabia. My nighttime passport allowed me to ride on Huck’s raft and Hook’s boat, cook on Marmee’s stove, and solve crimes with Nancy Drew.

So just like an athlete daydreams about his son learning to throw curve balls, I had imagined David, my only child, falling in love with words. Of course, first he had to learn to talk. But wouldn’t it be fun! How I anticipated his metamorphosis from an infant communicating with caveman-like grunts and unintelligible utterings to a child who would speak in sentences.

 I contemplated the future: David’s expanding vocabulary would lead to words which became questions, which eventually segued into short conversations. Soon we’d be reading together. Not War and Peace, certainly, but Goodnight Moon and Mary Poppins would do just fine. A few years later, mother and son would be huddled over crossword puzzles. We’d lie on the living room floor surrounded by dictionaries comparing the definitions of “butterscotch” and “caramel” in Webster’s and the Oxford English Dictionary’s (2^nd edition, of course).

 Meanwhile David’s “Aaaaaagoooooo”s and “eeeeeeeeee”s increased. He began to babble incessantly. I couldn’t wait for him to really start speaking. I yearned to teach him to embrace words, treasure words, love words.

Suddenly it began. Around 14 months.  “B” words. Not what I’d expected: the inevitable “ma-ma,” and “da-da.” “BALLOON!” he shouted one day as I handed him a red balloon. He understood! I could tell from the gleam in his eyes that he comprehended that the bobbling red helium-filled sphere had a name, and that name was “Balloon.”

 A few days later as we romped in the yard dipping tiny wands into soapy plastic bottles, his eyes sparkled as he said, “BUBBLES.” Almost giggly with excitement, I bent over and took him in my arms. He nestled against my shoulder. Life was perfect.

 A week later, “BALL!” He crowed with pleasure as he ran toward his beloved soccer ball and kicked it into the neighbor’s yard.

 I was delighted. “B” words were fine. If I’d only called him “Bob,” he could have already said his name!

But then came ‘No.’ He got stuck on “No” for months. He said, ‘No’ when he meant ‘No,’ and ‘No’ when he meant ‘Yes.’

For an emphatically affirmative answer, he’d nod, and then declare, “Yes No, Mommy.”

When asked,  “Honey, is that a ‘Yes No’ or a ‘No No?’” David’s brow would furrow, and he’d yell, “NO, NO, NO!” I began using sign language and gestures. Anything to avoid that ubiquitous “No.”

Soon came comical misnomers. Grammatical problems anyone learning English might experience: why “feet” instead of “foots” or  “sheep” instead of “sheepses?” Before long I understood that his command, “I want some sip!” translated into “I’m thirsty,” and “Turn on the bright,” meant “Get the flashlight.”

One day I coughed. When David, now three, looked at me with concern, I tried to reassure him by saying, “It’s just a frog in my throat.” He frowned, and then asked, “A real frog, Mommy? Or a toy frog?” With a smile, I realized that I was no longer the most literal person I knew.

David’s vocabulary grew quickly, and soon he became an expert at mangling words: That beloved Italian pasta called Bah-sketti. “Look at those men-ses!” he’d command when passing a construction site.

My idyllic daydream about our shared love of language faded as David began to argue that I was wrong about the pronunciation of words I’d used since my own childhood. Before this, I’d never fully understood how much I hate being contradicted. I’d dig my fingernails in my hand and try not to roll my eyes as he “taught” me to enunciate the sunny color named “Lellow.” Gently, I repeated, “YELL-ow, honey, Say it like this: Yell-ow.” He looked at me pityingly, then insisted, “No, Mommy! LELL-ow!!”

Woe be it to the foolish woman who points out his errors. Nothing brings on a temper tantrum quicker than corrections from Mommy.  

If anyone would ever have told me it was quicker to write books than to potty train a toddler, I wouldn’t have believed it. But I can easily write a book in a year, yet it took fourteen months for David, my three-year-old, to learn to use the toilet. I counted 420 days — longer than some prison sentences — of messy diapers, poop-smeared bathrooms, filthy pants, dirty hands, three cases of pink eye (all mine), and an infinite amount of “big boy underwear” emblazoned with racing cars, speeding trains, chomping dinosaurs, and testosterone-fueled superheroes.

I thought I was ready to tackle this developmental milestone. I’d read every pertinent book in the library. David and I even watched a video on the subject and began official potty training season by purchasing shiny star-shaped stickers and a massive white poster. I carefully explained to him that he’d earn a golden sticker to decorate this poster each time he used the potty. He looked at me with wide eyes.

Two months later, the bare poster lay propped against the bedroom wall. Sad and smudged. Alone. Not a single star on it.

All right, I thought. I hate to resort to bribery, but let’s get this over with. I bought candy. Lots of candy. His favorite candy. I emptied the bag onto the kitchen table, arranged the treats in an enticing array and, in a wheedling voice, announced, “You may have these. You can eat them all. But first you have to use the potty.” I felt ashamed, but it didn’t matter. He refused to use the potty and simply ignored the candy.

The next week I tried toy trains as the lure. David loves trains. Surely this would do the trick. I showed him a seductive collection of little boxcars, smelters, engines. Even a darling red caboose. He frowned, and then shouted, “No! Potty! Train!”

How about cars? Miniature hot-rods in gleaming primary colors! I presented them in shiny boxes lined up on the bathroom floor. He began to sob. Tears squirted from his eyes like tiny pearls. Bribery was obviously the wrong tactic. Time to try something new.

I visited our local superstore and bought a blue plastic potty shaped like a miniature throne. My idea of a joke. It featured a special trick: whenever a deposit was made into the bowl, the sitter was rewarded with triumphal music. At first David liked it. He laughed and sat down. Soon he began to pee while on the throne. He crowed with delight and adored making the jubilant trumpets proclaim to the world that Yes! He had urinated! I was thrilled.  Until the potty began to go off mysteriously in the middle of the night with no one near it.  David would wake up hearing it and scream that we had a ghost. Yes, a ghost that used his potty. He refused to go near the haunted potty again, and soon it sat against his bedroom wall beside the blank poster. No royal flush for us.

I asked other mothers for advice and trolled the internet for suggestions. I tossed Cheerios into the toilet. “Now aim for the cereal, honey. No! NO!  Don’t point that at Mommy,” I heard myself say as I reached for a towel.

I found two French drawings of elegantly dressed canines standing erect on their hind legs relieving themselves against a wall. I hung them in his bathroom and waited. Finally he noticed them and said, “Look! They’re peeing.” I replied, “Yes, they’re to inspire you.” But the drawings only confused him: whenever he saw dogs urinating on the sidewalk, he asked repeatedly, “Why aren’t they standing up?”

Finally, after months, he clamored onto a footstool, faced the toilet, pulled down the elastic-waisted sweat pants that had been his standard attire for months, and let rip a yellow arch of fluid. He peered into the bowl shrieking with delight, “Pee makes bubbles!”

Soon Number One was mastered. But never Number Two, which had to be done in a diaper. Preferably while hiding in his closet. Whenever he’d vanish behind the sliding doors, I’d call out, “Honey! Are you pooping? Run for the potty!”

“No, Mommy, noooooo,” he’d protest, despite the unmistakable odor wafting from the closet.

A year passed. I was invited to speak about my books at the High Museum in Georgia. I couldn’t wait. The museum arranged a dinner party for me to meet some of their patrons. I chatted with an elegant businesswoman who was building a re-creation of a French 18^th century mansion in modern-day Atlanta. We chatted about boiserie, Napoleon’s furniture upholsterer, and Louis 16^th chairs. She knew her stuff.

Just before dinner, she mentioned that she had five grown sons. My eyes widened. I whispered, “May I ask you a personal question?” I explained about the potty problem. Her eyes narrowed. She asked, “How old is he?”

“Three years, three months,” I replied.

“Does he have any intelligence what-so-ever?”

“Well, yes,” I said, surprised by her directness, “he does.”

Her mouth tightened. She leaned forward to confide. “Then he’s pulling your chain!”

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“He knows exactly what to do. He’s enjoying making you do it for him. Why should he wipe his butt if you’ll do it? You go home, tell him you know what he’s up to, and you won’t stand for it anymore.”

I thanked her politely but, deep in my heart, I knew she was wrong. It couldn’t be that simple.

However, upon my return to the world of smelly diapers, I decided to try her advice. What did I have to lose? I knelt down and looked into David’s big brown eyes. “Honey, while I was away, I met a lady who’s the mommy of five big boys. Five grown boys. I told her about you, and she says you’re old enough to use the potty and smart enough to know what to do in the bathroom. So Mommy’s not going to help you with that anymore. It’s your job now.”

He turned and marched into the bathroom. Alone.

After a few minutes, he yelled, “Mommy, come see!”

Darned if he hadn’t done it. Pooped in the potty. Just like we’d been discussing for 14 months. All it took was one sophisticated woman, an experienced mom, to tell me that he already knew how.

Granted, we still have a few problems: Each specimen has to be evaluated in terms of its size, color, shape, and smell before it can be flushed. No one can urinate on top of his donation to the potty (I wasn’t trying to save water; I was just in a hurry).

He’ll use a public toilet, but only after looking inside every stall.  If any of the stalls are already taken, forget it.  He’d rather poop in his pants.

Still, I’m delighted with his progress. This was David’s first week without an “accident.” Tonight I flung myself on the sofa, heaved a big sigh, and announced, “I’m pooped!”

A little voice piped up. “Run to the potty, Mommy. I’m not going to do it for you. You’re a big girl.”  

(c) 2008