The Butthead Diaries

It's an ugly word. Not totally profane nor on the list of magic words that will get you kicked out of a basketball game, but a bad word nonetheless. I'm sorry if I offended anyone just by using it in the title. But after surviving Butthead weekend recently only the actual word will suffice.

Colin likes to try things on for size. He has an older brother and his two best friends have older brothers. He hangs out at baseball games like a batboy and gets much more "exposure" than Quinn ever did. Somehow last week he picked up "Butthead." And sure enough, tried it out. First on Quinn, which met with consequences from Mom and Dad. And, then on Mom and Dad which DEFINITELY met with consequences. Much of the weekend was spent purging "Butthead" from his vocabulary. Most were preceeded with "you are a ..." and said with conviction even disdain. Here a "Butthead" there a "Butthead" everywhere a "Butthead." And, then, by Monday morning -- poof -- it was gone. Maybe the consequences took their toll, maybe having your mouth washed out with Softsoap ("now with Milk Protein and Honey") really is that awfully memorable, but much to our delight (and maybe some pride) we had purged the word in 72 hours. Mind you it was a rough 72 hours, but purged nonetheless.

So, an entire week has gone and nary a BH has been heard. Now there are other things that have cropped up in that week (he's 4 after all), but bad name calling is not one of them. We've worked a lot on being a good teammate with our brothers and treating people how we would want to be treated ourselves.

Then Monday night we return from a walk. The weather had turned from last week's gorgeous weather, but it was a comfortable night nonetheless. We had a great walk and talk. Some of our best family time is on walks around the neighborhood ("Quinn, you know, someday you won't think Mom and I are cool anymore..."). We stayed out a few minutes too long. The boys were snipping at each other a bit as we returned the last few blocks (over pinecones, no less). The walk ended kind of poorly. Not epic, bad, just ordinary poor. Quinn went upstairs first, Colin lingering in the basement with Kate, Lawton and I. "Now Colin, that was a great walk, why don't you be a good teammate, treat Quinn kindly, and when you go up ask him to work on the puzzle with you until dinner." It seemed to register, he put his shoes away without a reminder and went upstairs.

Quietly, expectantly, Kate and I hoped for the best and craned our heads to hear upstairs. He seemed in the right frame of mind. He reaches the top of the stairs and with no anger, no malice, a conversational tone and perhaps (though we couldn't see it) even a smile/smirk on his face greets Quinn with "Hey Butthead."