Hi! My name is ... what?

We teach the children anatomically correct terminology. Arm. Foot. Vagina. It's all in their repertoire. Someday, most likely in a store, we may regret not teaching them more delicate terminology to describe the human body. For now, the biggest problem is when Abbie counts her brothers’ penises during bath time.

As I changed the boys’ diapers tonight, we worked on names. The boys know their names, but they don’t say their names when asked. When I ask, “What’s your name?” their response is usually a blank stare. At best they point at me and say “Daddy!”

I worked on Tory while asking for his name. He repeated, “What’s your name?” back to me. We continued the echo chamber until I removed his diaper. Ian saw the body part and announced “A penis!”

“Yes, that’s a penis,” I said to reinforce his anatomical knowledge. “But that’s not his name,” I continued. “What’s your name?”

“A penis!” came the response.

Uh oh.

Tory continued the call and response solo for a few rounds. “What’s your name? A penis!” he conversed with himself. I tried asking for his name to break the pattern, but each time one or both of the boys would answer “A penis!”

I did my best not to laugh to avoid reinforcing their answer, and I called for mommy. She rushed to the room thinking something might be wrong, and was relieved when I started asking the boys “What’s your name?”

“What’s your name?” they repeated back to me.

After a few rounds back in the echo chamber, I gave up and explained to mommy what had happened. This time I spelled out the key word to avoid reminding the boys of what had happened. I don’t mind if they call a penis a penis. When they call each other a penis, we’ll have problems.