Y'all are from the country, aren't you?

A week or more ago I let the girls - and Alan - walk up the the duck pond without me. It was a test of all of our judgments. I gave them a few minutes head start and then I went up the back way to spy on them. They seemed to be doing fine on their own. After a few more minutes I headed up the road the way they'd gone. And the neighbor across the street stopped me.

He said something like, "That your boy?" and motioned toward the front yard. I was confused, because Alan was up the street with the girls. And then the man corrected himself, saying the boy that was with the two girls in the front yard a bit ago. Yes, I told him, they were all mine.

"Y'all are from the country aren't you?" he asked.

Again I wasn't sure what the correct response was. I guess I do consider myself a little bit country, but I didn't think anyone else would. Maybe that's how it always is. In a roundabout way, trying not to offend me and telling me his nephew or some other 4 year old boy he knows does the same thing, he told me Alan had dropped his pants in the front yard to pee on a bush.

Great.

So I've been trying to explain to Alan when it's okay to pee outside and where it's okay to pee outside.

Today I had to explain that it's not okay to pee on his sisters. I heard Julia screeching at him not to pee on her. I told him he'd have to pee inside. I think he would have held it until he wet his pants rather than pee inside. We discussed it and he brokered a deal for peeing in the corner of the yard where no one can see. Then he went outside and announced, "Mama said it was okay to pee outside as long as I didn't pee on the girls."

Yep. We're from the country.