Chuthers and darps

The vocabulary of a five-year old includes some very interesting words, some of which the origin can be explained and some of which remain a mystery to this day.

I'll bet you didn't know you had a chuther.  Well, we ALL have chuthers... every single one of us.

A few months ago, my 5-year old, Q-man, was talking at me about something.  I was preoccupied with something else and only partially taking it in.  Something about "my chuther... blah, blah, blah.... his chuther... yada, yada, yada... their chuthers, etc."  I nodded in agreement, wondering what the heck a chuther was.  Then because the thing I was doing was soooooo important (I was probably changing a diaper or opening a package of hot dogs or trying to untangle a wad of Playmobil and Lego grappling hooks mixed with a necklace chain) I simply shrugged my shoulders and forgot about it.

It came up again during what started out as a similarly distracted, semi-one-sided conversation ....

     "We were chasing our chuthers, and he bit me."   (A-ha! I thought. Chuther again!  what is that?)
     "Your chuther bit you?"
     "No, mom!"   (really now, how could I be so stupid?)
     "Who bit you?"
     "Gus, mom.  But I bit him, too. And we said sorry already."
      "Okay..... but..... what's a chuther?"   (the $64,000 question)
     Heavy sigh... rolling eyes....
      "Your chuther is your SELF."

So I am thinking, and pretty sure, this comes from "each other".  Kind of a stretch, but makes some sense...especially in a 5-year old brain.  But where darp came from....

Traveling with young kids can be a blast... a ton of work but a blast nonetheless.  We were in Siena, Italy which is famous for the Palio, an annual horse race that dates back to 1656.  It is a super big deal over there and horses are, too.  We were wandering around and came upon an enormous statue of a horse... a very virile-looking horse, I might add (of course, who on earth would make a statue of an old nag, right?).  Big G was nearly 5 at the time.  He was fascinated by this statue.  He started telling me all about it.

     "He's really big, mommy."
     "He sure is."
     "He has big legs."
     "Yep."
     "He has a fancy saddle."
     "He does."
     "And there's his darp."
     "His what?"
     "His darp."  (now pointing up underneath the horse).

At that age, Big G was familiar with the word "penis" and what it was, so I knew that wasn't what a darp was.  Then he reached up and patted the gigantic balls...

We don't all have a darp.