Monday, May 9, 2011

Locker Room Talk


Lukas started his first swimming classes this past week.  We enrolled him in the parent and tot program with me and he is loving every minute of it.  So much so, that with his recent obsession with superhero's I wouldn't be surprised if Aquaman becomes a new favorite.  Not that there's anything wrong with Aquaman of course.  I was once an Aquaman fan myself.

Anyway, we have only been to one class so far and we have already been working on kicking his feet, blowing out through his nose as he puts his head under water, and reaching with one hand and then the other as we moved through the pool to retrieve a toy we tossed ahead of us.  Like many of the sporting events we have undertaken, the swimming seemed to come naturally to him.

His locker room etiquette on the other hand? Not so much.

Prior to class starting we obeyed the posted rules and hit the showers to rinse off the outside world before depositing ourselves into the pool.  Next to us in the open shower cavern was a naked guy who was also showering, after apparently exiting the pool.  I pressed the button to turn on a shower head for Lukas.

Then as I was immersing myself with warm water, Lukas yelled at the top of his lungs - in his normal voice "Look Daddy!  Look, look!  That man is washing his pen*s!!  He's washing his pen*s! Hahaha. That's siwwey daddy" as he continued laughing while the water ran down his face. 

I think it was more that he was doing this cleansing in public that struck Lukas as amusing.  "He's just cleaning up Bud.  We all do that" I replied to him, as I turned to the other guy who I could tell was a father himself as I saw his older son showering on the other side of him.

"Uh, sorry Man" I offered to the other dad, a little embarrassed "It's our first time in a public locker room".  "I understand" he responded, pointing a thumb over at the kid next to him.

Then, a few minutes later, as we were drying off in another section of the locker room, Lukas whimpered a bit, before turning to me and telling me that "A man made a mad face a me, Daddy".  I looked around, before telling him that I was standing right there, and I didn't see anyone make a mad face at him.

"Yes he did!  He's right there!" my little guy shouted out loud again, pointing directly at another dad who was not 5 feet away from him.  "Look!" To Lukas' credit, the guy did have a pretty sour expression on his face, but it certainly wasn't directed at my little dude.  "Yeah!" Lukas continued - turning to me still shout talking through his clenched teeth and forcing his cheeks downward, "His face is doing this Daddy!!"

With that I couldn't help looking over at the dad once again to see how close he had nailed the guys expression, but at that he was already walking off to look for his son. And with that my 3 year old and I were briefly alone again in our section of the locker room. 

It was a good opportunity to have a one on one with him about locker room etiquette. And about keeping his thoughts to himself.

9 comments:

Kevin said...

That's hilarious. I can see my son doing the same thing as Lukas.

Aquaman was one of my favorites as well.

Idaho Dad said...

It's so nice once your kids learn their "quiet voice."

Our local rec center has individual locker rooms, or cabanas as they call them. So, any washing of private parts is done in, well, private.

Anonymous said...

At least he didn't laugh and say his was bigger.

rawlivinguy.blogspot.ca said...

Great story man you must have been blushing a bit yourself. Talk about funny could only imagine this should be downsized and sent into readers digest for the section hows kids see it. Really great stuff man I write about living a raw food lifestyle myself.

Jack said...

That story was worth the price of admission. I needed a good laugh today.

Irrational Dad said...

Awesome! My son loudly asked his mom why another lady was wearing pajamas at Walmart.

Dustin Bryson said...

Great blog roll man. I was looking for other dads who blog and found you through DadLab. Found some good ones I am going to start following in there.

IzzyMom said...

Kids are so honest and uncensored..it's refreshing but also incredibly embarrassing at times.

Once we were in a store with very narrow aisles and the elderly lady in front of us had quite obviously farted. I just held my breath and waited for her to move along...but my daughter, who was about 4 at the time and super loud, goes "Peeeyoooo! Mommy! I think that lady tooted! It stinks! Ewwww!"

It was really funny but I felt SO bad for the woman because I'm certain everyone in the tri-county area heard my daughter call her out.

Knatolee said...

Hahahaha! "Son, you need to use your library voice in the locker room!" I love kids. No filters!