Smells like teen spirit

Half the reason he loves his toque is that it sounds like "toot"...

Silas. The boy who will look at you with a twinkle in his eye, give you a secret smile, come over for a sweezy hug, and then let one rip while in your arms with a roar of laughter. And then he'll blame the cat.

He's two. I'm afraid what the next 16 years will be like.

This would be all okay ("okay" as in "I act all stern and talk about polite manners while hiding my ill-concealed grin behind my hand") if his gas emissions weren't so rancid. And by "rancid" I mean "they smell like putrid death and can clear the room in 0.2 seconds."

I am not exaggerating.

For his one-year shots, two nurses had me hold his legs securely while they simultaneously poked him on opposite legs. So we're all crammed together around this little kid table in a 4 foot by 8 foot room, all hunched over Silas...and then he silently passes gas. And it was AWFUL. So of course it was suddenly like I was ten and getting the giggles in church (everything is funnier in church). I start sweating, partly from the smell, partly from four bodies crammed into a 2'x2' circle, partly because I was dying from trying to contain my "hi, I'm eight and laugh at farts" laughter, and partly because it immediately dawned on me that they probably thought it was me.

There is kid gas and then there is adult gas. And then there is "I ate a dead dog" gas.

So there we were, three adults just acting like everything was normal while the insides of our nostrils were slowly being eaten away by fumes. Which made it even funnier. And through it all, no one said a word. I was physically hurting by the time they exited the room. Oh, the funny horror.

And then yesterday we went to the post office. Silas had us driving there in 50-degree weather with our windows rolled all the way down. So I knew what I was about to attempt was stupid: we were going to enter a public place to stand in a slow-moving line with a gut-rot boy. I had it coming to me.

Sure enough, we get in a line of about 13 people, and this strange burnt-rubber/manure smell starts enveloping all of us standing there. And I started getting all sweaty and nervous again - I mean, what do I do?? Acknowledge? Ignore? Help me, God!!! So I lamely stage-whispered to Silas, "Sy-Guy, do you have to use the potty?" And in true Silas fashion, he (in his very loud voice) says all twinkly-eyed and laughing, "That not ME!! That you! I not toot!!" And I nervously laugh, all "good joke little guy!" and look up to find about five people looking at me with narrow eyes. And I couldn't blame them - it smelled like weird "I ate a rubber chicken along with some dead dog" man gas, not baby gas, and it totally looked like I was trying to pin it on my cute, unassuming kid. And we stood there, no one saying a word, choking on toxic fumes for the next fifteen minutes. Oh. My. Word.

I cannot even describe the horribleness and the extreme awkwardness I endured during that fifteen minutes.

So really the whole point of me writing this is that if someone last night told you a story about a woman in line at the post office who blamed her son for THE most foul-smelling gas s/he had ever encountered, please stand up for me and clear the air. Pun fully intended.

Really - get me out of here.