Despite the fact that, or precisely because, I’m an ex-smoker, I hate how familiar Peanut is with cigarettes. He calls them ka ka and wags his finger at people he sees smoking. He also keeps wanting to throw butts (which are seemingly everywhere in Italy) in the garbage and I’m having a heck of a time trying to explain that ka ka is dirty and yucky and we want to leave it alone and not touch it. I’m trying to make up for our mistake of letting this nickname for cigarettes stick since we celebrate and praise him when he produces it regularly himself.

Shit.

Speaking of swearing, I must say I appreciate how much looser laced Italians are about this. It’s refreshing, if still a bit jarring for this ever-so-slightly puritanical North American. And it supports my writer’s guts on the matter, i.e. that all words are good. I’m still working out how I want to educate Peanut on this. I do try not to swear too much in front of him. All in moderation and suchlike. I think I’ll try to make it one of the things we’re only allowed to do at home (at least in English).

Today when I firmly repeated the drawbacks of picking up cigarettes Peanut, rather ingeniously I might say, grabbed a nearby stick to nudge the butts into the sewer, thereby satisfying his desire without breaking my rule.