The career aspirations of a 3.5 year old

I'm having a love hate relationship with the age of 3.5. I absolutely adore the jokes, the enthusiasm, the questions (except for the incessant "why?"), the getting dressed with minimal help, the solo toileting and so on. Watching Tricky bloom and grow in confidence is amazing.

I'm less enamored with the way everything revolves around bodily function and waste products.  EVERYTHING.

For Christmas, Tricks got a doctors' kit. Stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, that whatchamacallit they put in your ears, a thermometer, the whole shebang. He thought it was the ant's pants. Dr Tricky frequently makes his rounds, checking us all out and making sure we're well. If we're sick, he gives us medicine and declares we have to wait until we feel better before playing cars. Thanks, dude.

A few weeks ago, Map Guy and Tricks were playing a game of "make a diagnosis without the help of Google" which involved a lot of blood pressure pumping and temperature taking. MG picked up the thermometer and thought it would be a good idea to tell him how it worked.

"Do you know where you can measure temperature?"

"In your ear and under your arm!"

"Yep, and under your tongue, and... up your bottom!"

Cue hysterical laughter from the boy.

I shot daggers at MG across the room. He didn't just tell a derriere obsessed preschooler that you stick thermometers up bums did he? It is bad enough when the kid comes around and shoves that plastic stick in your ribs (too short to reach our underarms), and now it means he'll sneak up on us and firmly plant it between the butt cheeks. I'm puckering just thinking of it.

I had visions of being on the phone or answering the front door and all of a sudden screaming like Maria on a pine cone at dinner (if you don't get that reference, SHAME ON YOU!). There is only so many times you can blame sudden outbursts on rheumatism, ya know?

Since finding out that there is such a thing as a rectal thermometer, Tricky has narrowed down his career aspirations. The cast of usual suspects; police officer, fireman, and even map maker (it's in the genes) no longer get a mention. He wants to be a doctor. Not just any doctor though, a proudly, and often loudly proclaimed, "bum doctor".

Do you know how many people lead a conversation with a preschooler with what they want to be when they grow up? ALL OF THEM! Do you know how many people look startled and then highly amused while I blush a lovely shade of red? ALL OF THEM!

"A bum doctor? Really?"

"Yep, I'll look at bums all day! Your bum, Dad's bum, Pop's bum..."

So, Doctor Tricky. Proctologist. Excellent.

What do/did you/your kids want to be when they grew up?