There's something about toilet-related vocabulary that my children find fascinating, hysterical, and worthy of lengthy conversations and ridiculous songs.

I don't think it was my six-year-old daughter who started it. It must have been one of her younger brothers. Laughing about farts and poo seems, somehow, more of a boy thing. But she thinks it's pretty funny too and is probably the composer of the little songs.

"Oh, I love poo-poo in the morning," rings through the house, causing me to shut the windows so the neighbours don't overhear. What kind of nursery rhymes are you teaching your children?

Passing wind causes utter hilarity and several minutes of imitation sounds. Going to the bathroom has become a family affair. The kids all crowd in to examine their bowel movements and discuss the length, shape and general stinkiness. And when my two-year-old fills his diaper, everyone has to examine the evidence. I find myself asking that terrible parental question: Are my children normal? Even worse, might I have unwittingly caused the problem?

I've never made a big privacy issue out of going to the bathroom. When my children were younger and insisted on following me everywhere, I let them follow me there, too. I still don't lock the door and don't fuss over things like nudity. Had I been more of a prude, they might have picked up on it and not dared to discuss such private matters.

Alright, maybe I've even laughed at a few of their songs or jokes, which is like giving money to a panhandler -- you get marked as an easy target. But how things have come this far, I'm still not sure.

My children spent almost four years on a farm in Langley. It's not like excrement is a novelty. We had a dog, horses, sheep and pigs -- was poop everywhere. Then we moved to an apartment in the middle of Montreal. Ah, maybe that was it. Maybe toilet talk is their way of expressing loss for the life we've left behind. It's not as farfetched as it sounds. When we first arrived in Montreal, our four-year-old, who misses the farm more than anyone, expressed his displeasure by peeing in various corners of the apartment -- none of which contained toilets. His bodily functions became a means both of communication and of punishing his parents.

By then, toilet talk had seeped into almost every conversation. Not only was it getting tiresome to listen to, it was becoming embarrassing when it happened in public.

But how do you stop a child from saying something? It's one of those things -- like falling asleep or eating broccoli -- that you can't really force, as much as you'd like to. The kids are in control, and probably they know it.

Anyway, I didn't think eliminating toilet talk entirely from their vocabulary was realistic, or even a good idea. Going to the bathroom is, after all, part of nature. Children shouldn't feel embarrassed about their bodies. And these discussions about bodily functions are part of learning about, and being comfortable with, sexuality. Besides, on the scale of things worth disciplining your children for, toilet talk comes in pretty low. Throwing golf balls at the neighbours, hitting, pulling hair -- those merit some response. Laughing about poop seems lame by comparison.

So, we've arrived at a compromise. I've told the kids that toilet talk is appropriate in the bathroom, not at the dinner table. The songs and jokes are alright, as long as I can't hear them. They can be part of the strange and wonderful bedtime conversations that my two older children engage in, but they are not suitable playground chatter. This seems to be working.

Unfortunately, somewhere along their acquisition of English vocabulary, my children picked up the word "hooters." It doesn't help to have an ex-rugby player for a husband but, in fact, they did not learn the word from him. When they asked me what it meant, I was shortsighted enough to tell them; worse, I emphasized that it was a word one didn't use. Ah, just like the pee-pee and poo-poo words. One afternoon while we were walking along St. Denis, a sophisticated, busy street in Montreal, my dear four-year-old shouted, "Lady's got hooters!" People looked around. Luckily, it's a mostly French area, but bilingualism is a hallmark of Montreal and "hooters" is, I suspect, among the known vocabulary.

Between my husband and I, we came up with enough threats to silence him, but his two-year-old brother who hangs on his every word, smiled and repeated, "Baby's got scooters!" There was no keeping him quiet.

I don't know what we'll do when he gets the words right.

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