Chelsea Kaplan’s Musings About Life... After Birth

Here’s what was going on in my life, roughly this time last year:

My son has recently become obsessed with any and every thing that features wheels. He has eschewed all of his toys that aren’t trucks, cars or tractors, and each morning when he wakes up, he throws a fit until I open the window so he can look out onto our street and point to all of our neighbors’ cars.

The other day, I reported this to Momtourage member Linda while we were at Pottery Barn Kids together.

“I hate to tell you this, honey, but you know this means he has no shot of being gay,” she said. In my never-ending quest to steer my son towards a life in which he’ll never leave me for another woman, I removed my child from the “boy” side of the store and plunked him and Linda’s daughter, Lily, in the middle of the pretend kitchen equipment. “Look, kids - check out this pink stove!” I sang. Lily immediately started playing with the toy stove and refrigerator, while my son ignored me, making a beeline back to the other side of the store, zeroing in on a wheeled train, tipping it over and spinning its wheels.

“You need to just give it up,” Linda sighed.

“That’s easy for you to say,” I shot back. “Your kid will see nothing wrong with accompanying her mother on vacations when she’s 30.” Linda admitted I had a point.

At first, my son was calling all vehicles “tractor”, after his favorite wheeled toy.

Soon, he learned that the word for his blue and yellow dump truck was “truck”, and began to use it as well. Recently, he picked up “car”. Unfortunately, however, he has morphed “car” and “truck” into a new word he now uses when pointing out all wheeled vehicles. This past week, he debuted this word when I took him with me to meet Momtourage member Melissa and her son for lunch. After finishing his turkey and swiss crepe, my kid pointed to a van outside and shouted “cock!”

“Did he just say what I think he said?” she asked, giggling.

He repeated it about 3 more times. It was as clear as day. “I believe so,” I groaned.

“That’s hilarious.” she laughed, then tried to get him to say “big” beforehand. I finally told her - not so nicely- to stop it.

Everywhere my husband and I took him this past weekend, he pointed out a “cock”.

“Oh my God,” I said to my husband, after my son shouted “cock” about 20 times in the middle of the toy store. “It totally sounds like he’s saying ‘cock’, right? It’s not just me?”

“Uh, it doesn’t sound like he’s saying ‘cock’,” he said, “He is.”

Perhaps there’s hope after all…..