Oh, nuts.

The other day Cooper was running around doing this and that while I was busy in the kitchen eating Nutella out of the jar cooking dinner. 

I heard a loud CRASH! followed by a BOOM! followed by a four year old's voice (MY four year old, to be perfectly clear) yell "OW!  My nuts!"

I decided on the spot that this was one of those pivotal parenting moments, the ones that probably change the course of a child's life and all that jazz, but this Nutella certainly wasn't going to eat itself, so I completely ignored him.

Then he yelled, quite loudly I might add, "MAMA!  I HURT MY NUTS!"

I guess there was no getting out of this one.

I sighed, licked the last bit of Nutella off my spoon, and as I was putting the lid back on the jar, I carefully started formulating my response and wondering how we had gotten here. I mean, really, where does the kid pick this stuff up?  He's FOUR.  He doesn't even go to school.  I seriously doubt he learned it at story time at the library.  

I promptly decided he had likely picked up that kind of language from his big brother, or possibly one of his big brother's friends, who come around quite a lot because the popsicles are good here and also because we have enough trees in our yard for everyone to hide behind during their rousing and uplifting games of Zombie Apocalypse.  (This is what they play.  It's apparently quite fun.  It's like tag, but with zombies and weapons.  Yes, my parenting skills are questionable at best.) 

"So Cooper," I began tentatively, "you hurt your... nuts?"

"YES! I HURT MY NUTS!"  he yelled.

"Oh, well.  Do you need an ice pack?" I asked.  It's not like I really wanted to check the situation out for myself if I could help it.  Plus he wasn't actively sobbing, so I figured it wasn't too bad.

"YES!" he yelled.  Apparently hurting one's nuts makes one quite loud.  "I need an ice pack for my nuts!"

So I trotted off to the freezer and grabbed the Incredible Hulk ice pack - desperate times call for HULK SMASH! measures here - which I handed to him.

He promptly took the ice pack and held it against his... head.

Justwalkawayjustwalkawayjustwalkaway.  Shit.  I can't walk away.

"Um, Cooper, I, um, thought you hurt your, um, nuts, not your head."  Seriously.  Mother of the year right here.

"Yeah," he responded, totally nonchalantly.  "My coconuts."  Then he reached up and rapped his knuckles on his head, complete with hollow "THUNK THUNK THUNK" sound effects.

Oh.  His COCOnuts.

Of course.

That's not exactly how I would use it in a sentence, but we value creativity here.

A little bit more thunking and a little bit more HULK SMASHING with the ice pack in tow led me to believe his nuts... um, coconuts weren't permanently damaged, so we went on with our day, coconuts firmly in place and ready to take on the world.


THUNK. THUNK. THUNK.