This is such a funny, but absolutely true, story from a few years ago that I blogged about last year. He was almost 4 at the time of the original incident:

My sons birthday is this week, so we had a party for him this weekend. It is hard to believe that he is going to be 5 years old already!

He wanted smoked meat and corn on the cob, so that is exactly what we planned and he helped me smoke pork roast all day on Friday for Saturday’s event. He is a great helper and always wants to help, I hope that carries over into his teens, but I hear that’s 50/50 at best. I will be optimistic.

He is also quite the little wordsmith, and one of the first words he could say was pistachio. His pediatrician was quite surprised with that, as the word was bigger than he was at the time. Before work one day about a year ago he surprised us with another new word when he threw it out while conversing with his grandfather, whom he calls pawpaw.

The previous day he had went running through the house while wearing socks, slid on the tile, and crashed into the wall producing a small bump on his head, so when pawpaw came in he asked, “how’s knot-head doing?”. The boy’s response was rather quick “I ain’t no knot-head” with pawpaw replying “yes you are knot-head”, eliciting a short back and forth of “no I’m not!”, “yes you are!”, before my son says quite vehemently “well then you’re a, you’re a tally-whacker then!”.

This was a very interesting predicament, as both his grandmother and I had to turn and leave the room immediately, so he did not see us trying to keep from laughing and of course the look on pawpaw’s face made this nearly impossible. I quickly gathered my wherewithal, came back in the room stating that I had to get to the office, and made my exit. I believe that mawmaw, who cries anytime she laughs, took a good while of time in the other room with something important I am sure.

Throughout the day I would periodically burst out laughing each time I thought about the morning’s events, however I knew that it was disrespectful for him to refer to his grandfather as a tally-whacker, especially since I figured he probably had no idea what a tally-whacker was. I must admit that the combination of what my son said and the look on my father in law’s face made my day one that could not be ruined. I decided to have a talk with him when I got home about calling someone names like that, even if they do call you a knot-head.

When I got home that evening, and after his grandparents left, I called him over and placed him on my knee for what I thought was going to be a very serious conversation. I started of with, “son we need to have a little talk about you calling your pawpaw a tally-whacker” to which he abruptly cut me off with, “well he is one, one with pee on the end of it too!”.

“Well okay then son, I think I have some important work to do in the other room”…..