her dog has a blog: July 2008

Growing up, my mom had a habit of calling my brothers and I by the wrong names. Not each other’s names, so much, but by the dogs and cats names. It is understandable, I suppose, all of us being quite dear to her, but also potentially too energetic and noisy. And, lets face it, dogs are a lot like kids. The same training rules apply to both and the same sort of guidance goes out to each “leave it” “good job” “shhhh.” In fact, one of my favorite training books on dogs is actually premised on the parallels between raising a dog and raising a human child.

Which leads me to the reason for this post. If I’m relaxed and not paying much attention to what I’m saying, I’ve been known to call children “Buzz.” Usually, this isn’t really a big deal, because if I’m babysitting, the parents aren’t there to hear it and the kids either don’t notice or just think it is funny. It gets stranger when one of my goofier nicknames for Buzz comes out of my mouth;cute little girls aren’t used to being called things like “Mr. Monkey-breath.”

Well, the other day, I was hanging out with a friend and her 3-year-old

(isn’t she lovely?) While playing a game involving wands and leaping into the air, I called the little girl by a particularly unfortunate nickname of Buzz’s…“Poopy.” And of course, mom was right there when I said this. I was a little worried, but neither mother nor child seemed to notice that I had just called the dear girl by a pretty disgusting name. It turns out that the little one’s Dad refers to her almost exclusively as “PoopyDoopy” or “Poopy.” Thank doG for small favors! Perhaps I should stop calling Buzz such silly things if they are going to come flying out of my mouth while in polite company! They may cut off my donut supply!