The Cheese: Potty talk?

The Cheese Eater was outside in the backyard playing yesterday afternoon. I was quietly sitting on the couch reading a book.

"Mommy? There's scat in the yard," he ran in to inform me.

"What is 'scat'?" I asked.

"Mommy," (rolling his eyes in exasperation) "...'scat' is another word for poopy."

"Oh, well, I need to come and scoop the doggy poop in the yard. But, buddy...poopy is not called 'scat'."

"Uh huh, yeah there is."

At this point, I wasn't sure what to say. My son walked back out into the yard and that was the end of our conversation. I was glad that it was over because I had a feeling that the word 'scat' was a word for poopy that adults sometimes use that he was mispronouncing--a kind of bad word that we refer to in our house as Potty Talk.

But I couldn't really get onto him because I wasn't sure if that was what he was actually saying. And I didn't want to pursue it too much further and end up basically teaching him the bad word in the end.

"No son. The word isn't 'scat'. It is actually pronounced sh..."

I'm a fairly liberal, open-minded, tell-it-like-it-is kind of parent, but that's a little too much even for me.

But not so far in the future I'm going to have to have a parental discussion about cuss words. I am a parent to two boys--it is inevitable.

And I have no idea what in the hell I'm going to say to them.

Update: Apparently, scat IS a word that means poop. From Wikipedia: "In medicine and biology, scatology or coprology is the study of feces." My child doesn't have a potty mouth--he's a genius with a better vocabulary than his mother. He learned it on a nature hike during a birthday party. I'm the one that's the idiot.