Dear Readers

Have you ever had what you thought was a warm, fuzzy parenting moment only to have it backfire? (Pardon the pun, which you will understand as you read on.)

My son started Integrated Learning Therapy a month ago to help him with his writing skills. Part of the ILT includes a programme of movement-based activities that you do together with your child at home. Every evening we spend half an hour together doing some easy and fun exercises. My daughter could not resist joining in.

Some of the exercises require you sing a short, nonsensical rhyme and for some strange reason these moments began to dust the cobwebs off and unlock some memory cells in my brain that store the silly songs I used to sing when I was a kid.

Does anyone remember Grandma's Feather Bed and Paddy McGinty's Goat? I, to my amazement, regurgitated every word to them. My kids loved hearing these songs, and spurned on by the warm, fuzzy parenting moment, I blurted out, "Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin ran away!" Well, my kids were extremely delighted by this song especially since it contained the word "fart" and involved Batman blowing up the country with his bottom.

A week later whilst driving my daughter's teacher and some classmates to a class camp, my daughter decides to teach my dodgy Jingle Bells song to her friends. She then promptly announces to them and her teacher that her mom taught it to her. I was speechless! This was a rare moment for me of course. My husband was bleak that he wasn't there to witness it! I tried to recover my composure by saying, "Well at least I don't allow her to listen to the radio. Have you heard some of those awful, inappropriate songs they insist on playing over and over these days?"

Later that evening I chatted to my kids on the appropriate location and time for the delivery of nonsensical toilet humour rhymes.

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