I was more than a little disturbed when my five- year- old son spelled the word butt. It came out of nowhere on the way to school one day. Of course, his two sisters were completely amused, which led him to spell the butt word over and over again.

My son could be spelling worse words, but when that's the only word he can spell, I get a little worried. How about C- A- T or D- O- G or even B- U- T? Leave off that last T, and we don't have a problem… we've got a conjunction, not a slang word for the gluteus maximus.

As a proud parent, I always pictured my son as a future Bill Gates, not a future Bevis. Of course, he may be swimming in a gene pool closer to the latter. I still lose it every time

I see the Blazing Saddles

campfire scene. My sense of humor can best be summarized with the phrase, "Pull my finger." Still, if my son is going to spell, he may as well be spelling something that does not give new meaning to no child left…behind.

I wish I could say this was just a boy thing, but his oldest sister, while laughing hysterically at his newfound spelling prowess, added another word to his vocabulary. Now he can spell what makes the Blazing Saddles campfire scene so funny. As a consequence, I'm afraid he strolled into kindergarten singing questionable vocabulary instead of his A- B- Cs. I tried to put the kibosh on all this spelling, but the damage was already done. I can only hope he doesn't get the whole kindergarten class singing about tushies and their talents. That teacher conference wouldn't be much fun.

I guess the parental glow of perfection is officially off my youngest child. That's the glow we parents put around our children when we think they are flawless, and, frankly, the most wonderful children ever to grace this or any earth.

My firstborn lost her glow when I caught her licking the bottom of her feet in her high chair. It's kind of hard to claim perfection, when my child wouldn't touch her green beans, but had no problem treating the soles of her feet like a Tootsie Pop.

My second child lost her glow during the potty training process. I won't go any further at the risk of getting too graphic. Now, my final child…my boy…has ventured into the land of normalcy. He's tiptoed the line for quite

some time, but the butt

finally tipped the scales. Now I've got a whole new list of things to look forward to. I can only hope he doesn't take a few more glows of perfection down with him.

Raising children is tough work, and if this is the worst of it, then I've got it pretty good. At least he's spelling…right?