Good-bye, Captain Underpants!

The wee ones love to read.  If they didn't, I'm sure I wouldn't be writing this post.  But they do.  They wake up in the morning and read.  They try to read at the breakfast table.  They bring books to read every time we get in the car.  And on it goes.

I've generally not really censored much of what they read.  I'll push Little Miss to get more Spanish language books from the library because she's supposed to read 30 minutes every night in Spanish and she whines about our selection that she's read "50 kajillion times, Mom!"  And I've recently had to pull Mister Man back from the Heroes of Olympus series that is not really meant for a just-turned-nine-year-old.  Beyond that, I've let them choose the books they're interested in.

They recently discovered Captain Underpants and Super Diaper Baby.  And those have been the majority of the books that have come home from both the school library and the public library.  I actually thought that I'd been blessed and we'd missed those books, but no.  And I've noticed a change.  The language has become (literally) very potty mouthed.  They talk about butts a lot.  Mister Man is discussing wedgie prowess.  And I gotta say, I'm not a fan.

They read some of the book out loud to me, and the tone is just not one I like.  I had already limited them to one Captain Underpants or Super Diaper Baby book at a time.  My mom laughs and tells me that I went through a potty fascination of my own.  Except I was four at the time.  When you're older, you apparently can get far more creative, and I'm just tired of it.  I limit the television and movies they watch, so why not the books, too?

Mister Man is currently reading The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg.  It isn't like taking the series away will dampen their interest in reading.  They are constantly quoting or reading a portion of a book to me.  The "all reading is good reading" theory only goes so far with me.  And in our case, those books are gone after today.  The final straw was finding Little Miss's notebook filled with alternate - potty mouth - names for family and friends.

There was one small pearl that came from this.  The other day, Little Miss turned to me...

Mom, what does turd mean? she asked curiously.

Well - I started to reply.

It's a really fancy word for poop! interrupted Mister Man, with arguably the best definition of turd ever.  But that didn't earn the books a reprieve.