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that's just little shit

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2012.03.25

Tonight our son was putting several of his toys into a good-sized cardboard box that he's been using as a "barn", up-ended and covered in dinosaur drawings and his dad's attempts at writing out the set of katakana.

I pointed to three small things that he hadn't put in the box with the rest. "What about those?"

He glanced at the Lego elephant, figurine, and horse. "no, that's just little shit."

"Uh... what?"

"shit! it's just little shit daddy."

Great. "That word's not for little boys, Kenny."

He looked at me, his head cocked to one side. "is it just for girls?"

OK, points for having got the difference between boys and girls, at last, but .. I could see that this wasn't going well.

"is it just for daddies?" he then asked.

I stood and approached him. "No, it's not a great word for Daddies either." I reached to pick him up.

"don't touch me," he said.

Sigh.

rand()m quote

If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it. A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

—Roald Dahl