Ask a Silly Question ...

My son was walking around grabbing at his bottom, groin and hips. "Is there something wrong with your undershorts?" I asked.

"No. Why did you ask that?"

"Well you were kind of grabbing at your seat," casually, calmly. "Why were your doing that?"

Don't worry, I'm not trying to give him a complex or anything. I wanted to make sure that he didn't need to use the bathroom, that he didn't have a rash, and that we did manage to get his clothes not only on the right parts but facing the right direction.

Asking "Do you have to use the potty?" is often construed as an indictment of his independence, and can provoke a mild contrary reaction ("No" and then he waits, to save face, even though he does  have to to go). And, as suggestible as preschoolers are, you never know, bringing up a rash might trigger an imaginary or psychosomatic one. More likely, there would be lots of "What's a rash?" and "Why?" I'm a sucker for indulging his curiosity, so it wouldn't be long before we were on the web looking up various rashes—which, on some days might be great  fun; but I have cleaning — and blogging — to do. (Don't ask me about the morning we did our on-line exploration of bacteria and viruses. I was  at least careful enough to talk a lot about "friendly" bacteria and not just illness [See "suggestible" above.])

Anyway, my son's answer about why he was grabbing his behind: "Oh. Well ... I was just doing that for fun."

I'll have to try that some time.