The Dangers of Education

Well, it's official: my daughter Olivia can read. Normally, this would be a cause for celebration, but it really puts a damper on my "parenting" style.

What I mean is that, with this development, my wife and I can no longer spell secret messages to each other in front of our middle child. Now, only the baby and Annamaria remain clueless.

Yesterday, Joseph was busy being a boy at the dinner table and he messed up the cushion on the window seat. This cushion was something that Amy wanted for a long time and now that we finally have it, it gets quite a bit of attention from the mistress of the house.

"Don't bend the cushion!"
"Don't hold your sandwich over the cushion!"
"Don't walk on the cushion with your dirty feet, I just cleaned it!"

You get the idea.

Well, last night Papi had the midkids--Joe and Liv--while Mama took the bookends--Sophia, Annamaria, and Max--to Sophia's audition (The Princess and the Pea, if you're tracking). Anyway, after dinner I noticed that the cushion had somehow found it's way under the table.

I announced to Joseph that Mama was going to be "P-I-S-S-E-D Off" if she came home and saw that. Because he's a good boy and loves his Mama (we all do), he fixed it immediately.

That's when I heard what I thought was Olivia spitting out a hair or something.

"Puh...puh...puh..."
"Liva, are you okay?"
"ih...ih...ih...ssss...ssss..."

Oh, hell.

"eh...eh...eh...duh...duh. PISSED!! Papi, what does 'pissed' mean?"
"It means Papi's in trouble."

In my defense, the "P-I-S-S-E-D Off" line is not how I usually speak in front of my kids; it's a quote from a song composed by one of my favorite singers, Tonio K.

Tonio K. is a brilliant satirical lyricist who sings about the twistedness of love after the Fall of Man. I've learned more about true love from him than probably any other influence in my life (sadly, including Popes). Trouble is, he used to have a potty mouth, and his song H-A-T-R-E-D (from which Liva's new vocabulary word was plucked) is peppered with a number of expletives. (It's a breakup song, he was drunk when he recorded it, etc., etc.) It's also hilarious. So I sing it. And quote parts of it. In front of my newly literate daughter.

So, for those of you that care about our Domestic Safari, some of the cubs are learining new tricks and one of the gameskeepers is in the dog house.