A Small Slip-up

It is no secret that when it comes to knowing what is appropriate to teach a toddler, I am completely in the dark.  I don't know what to teach him to call things like poop or pee or even the names of his "parts".  What I teach him seems to shock people, so it is likely that I am making poor decisions.  

Take the following conversation for example.  Recently, Eli has been struggling with distinguishing between males and females.  Very often, he will loudly ask "What's that guy doing?", clearly in reference to a woman.  People will feel very offended by being mislabeled as the opposite sex (it has happened to me before, but by totally competent adults...).  I felt I finally needed to address this lack of knowledge with a lesson.  While we were in the car the other day, I started to explain to him some of the physical characteristics of boys and girls.  It went something like this:  Girls typically have long hair, like Mommy.  Boys typically have short hair, like Daddy.  He nodded.  I asked if Daddy was a boy or a girl.  He said boy.  I thought we finally had it.  I said what about Mommy.  Also a boy.  Dang.  I was trying to think what other things I could explain to him that define the male and female (besides the glaringly obvious).  I told him that girls wear make-up.  Then, I ran out of things.  I know that since we are potty training, this might make some sense to him:  boys have wieners and girls do not.  He nodded.  Clearly, this is not something that will help him distinguish between males and females in the grocery store, but maybe just so he realizes that there are two distinct sexes out there.  Somehow, all this information must have gotten jumbled in his head, mixing with instructions of what "big boys" do versus what babies do (i.e. big boys do not have pacifiers).  Eli told me that he as a big boy, had a wiener.  I affirmed this. Then he said Daddy had one too.  And for some reason then he chose to yell, "and Mommy has a big wiener!"  I told him most definitely not.  We ended our lessons for the day.  This is why it would be wise for me never to home-school my children.

Perhaps he is not capable of this kind of rational thought yet.  I will have to continue to apologize to people and explain that he doesn't understand the difference and hope he doesn't yell something about them having a wiener.  

Oh brother, I really got it wrong this time...

Here is a video of us quizzing Eli.