Creepy Baby talk

As my waistline expands, so too does Toby’s image of his new sibling. It is quite amazing to watch as he grasps the difficult concepts that the miracle of bringing new life into the world begs to have answered. I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse that my final trimester of pregnancy has coincided with this new “why” stage, but it certainly leads to some interesting conversations.

One of the sweetest conversations occurred today. We were talking about his physician “Dr. C” whom he adores. I told him that she would be there when the baby came out and he asked (you guessed it) “Why?” Couldn’t I just do it myself? I replied that getting the baby out was something that was a little “tricky” (ouch, wince, shudder…do I REALLY have to do it again!?!?) and that I needed Dr C. to help me. After thinking about this for a while very sweetly suggested, “Mommy, can I help you? I can help get the baby out!” (double shudder). I turned him down gently by suggesting perhaps he may have more fun playing with Grandma Lynda. As creepy as it was, I did think it was a rather thoughtful suggestion.

One of the more regular topics of conversation is the baby that’s in HIS belly. He’ll randomly say things like, “You have to be careful with my belly. There’s a baby in there.” Or “My belly is getting big. It’s because of the baby that’s growing in there.” And today, sometime after the sweet conversation from earlier, he announced that Gochar and a few of his other (imaginary) friends were going to be there with him to help get HIS baby out.

It’s all very sweet and probably quite fascinating to developmental theorists, but there is something that has been bothering me a lot lately about these conversations. As much as I know he’s referring to the baby in his belly, he has, over the past few weeks to months, started to refer to it as his COCK. “Gochar is going to help get the cock out of my belly” and “I have a cock in MY belly, mommy” just doesn’t have the same sweet ring to it that “baby” does.

At first I just chalked it up to his 2-year-old garbled speech but its consistency has left me a little worried. WHO has taught him the word COCK and in what context!?!? After reading a few of Jodi Picoult’s novels, it doesn’t take much to make me a little paranoid about sexual abuse. So tonight, while Rob and I listened as he excitedly explained for the upteenth time how Gochar was going to help him get the "cock" out of his belly we stopped him to CLARIFY what exactly he meant.

Toby was, of course, eager to get on with his story and glossed over the question, quickly repeating, “COCK” and going on with his tale. We stopped him again and clarified - -maybe he meant clock? NO, not clock it was a COCK (duh). We suggested a few other similar sounding words without success. Finally, in his annoyance at our constant interruptions he threw his hands up in the air and said, “MOMMY, you know COCK. As in COCKODILE!”

After taking a few deep sighs of relief we set to work on pronouncing the letter “r”.