Burping Bottoms and Tooting Mouths

My family still tells the story about when my youngest brother was very young. One day he got a very surprised look on his face and said, "Oh! My bottom burped!" This might give you some idea of the lack of gassiness in the family that I come from. Even though I've never heard him say it, I know from my brothers that in 30 years of marriage, my dad hasn't ever passed gas in front of my mom.

My grandma still reddens when the subject comes up in her presence, even when the family is very gracious about the language they use to discuss the topic of bodily gasses in front of her. My cousins call it fluffing or poofing.

The family that I married into and the one my husband and I have brought forth is very different. Some mornings I am awakened to a symphony of poofs and fluffs. Farting is more than a common occurrence. I cannot say that this is something in which my mother-in-law approves. I don't think the gassiness comes from her side at all. It most certainly comes from the New York-Italians. To give them some excuse, they all seem to have suffered or in some cases currently suffer from lactose intolerance.

That is not my daughters' excuse, however, and my husband insists that he no longer has lactose intolerance. He claims to have ridded himself of that inconvenience while in high school by eating an entire carton of ice cream in one sitting and willing himself not to get sick.

My littlest brother's declaration is quite cute, we've always thought. Leave it to my daughter (or my husband's daughter) to have a similar but much more disgusting proclamation. She says, "My mouth tooted."