The other day my almost three year old daughter was playing with our neighbor's son, who is five days her senior. As she was bending over near him, her butt let out a wet little toot, and both of their toddler faces crinkled up with grins.

His mom is such a sweet woman. She looked completely panicked.

"Remember not to use toilet words! Just say excuse me!"

I wanted to laugh, but she looked so concerned that I kept my mirth on the inside. After all, it was my daughter that farted. Why would her son need to say excuse me? I also realized that was probably not the moment to let her know that I have a children's picture book called Hooray, I Farted! coming out in a few months. There are a lot of synonyms for fart in there that fall into the realm of toilet word.

It got me thinking, as publication nears, about how many parents are going to be scandalized by my quaint little fart book. It never actually occurred to me that fart might be considered a "bad" word. It's a human function. What else are we supposed to call it? Rectal air release? At this point you might have learned that making things a big deal just makes kids want to know more about them, but when it comes to the human body, I see no reason to hem and haw and blush over what our body does.

We talk about poop, pee, farts, vaginas, buttholes and a whole slew of things in our house. If she learns in preschool that that language is not acceptable, then she'll learn what she can and can't talk about in certain realms, and doesn't that have value, too? In our house, I'm not shying away from bodily functions or terminology. My daughter happens to think farts are funny. It's why I wrote my book in the first place, and someone is crazy enough to publish it, so I have a feeling I'm not alone here.

Toot, toot!