"I didn't say 'poop' at Santa!"

By now we all know that 'poop' is Liam's favorite word. He loves everything about it: the way the word sounds, the shock factor, the general stinkiness and forbidden-ness of it all. But a few weeks ago we unleashed our secret weapon on poop: Santa. Whenever Liam would start a verbal barrage of "poops" we would remind him that Santa doesn't like poop talk. Gradually we heard less and less of the word, and I just figured the novelty had worn off. Then came our visit to Santa....
We waited in line with the kids for an hour. We ate dinner in line. We danced. We (Liam) balanced and walked on the little ledge that clearly read "do not stand or lean on ledge"....Sarah and I wandered into the jewelery store to look at sparkles and it became very clear she's a girl with a penchant for bling! But finally it was our turn. We really weren't sure how this was going to go and after the Meet and Greet with Santa Fiasco of 2008, we had low expectations. But Liam walked himself right over to Santa, got up on his knee and said ever-so-clearly "I want a garbage truck. A BIG ONE!" We missed the 'please' on that one, but I was pretty impressed with his boldness and kind of relieved he didn't throw us a curveball and say "I want a zhu zhu pet!" so I let it go. Santa said he'd check at the North Pole and see if he could find a garbage truck. Thanks for asking what colour, Santa. We appreciate that you clarified that Liam would like a RED garbage truck.....
Anyways, that was such a huge success that it didn't really matter that Sarah was on the verge of a meltdown (it was past 7pm after all) and we knew it would be impossible to pry her from my arms over to some jingly guy with loads of facial hair. So we all got to have a little visit with the man of the hour, who bumped his status up another notch by offering Liam the most delicious candy cane ever flown in from the North Pole.
So back to the 'poop' thing....
With Sarah reasonably content in her stroller and Liam busy getting a layer of candy cane stickiness all over himself, we had a brief shopping opportunity. And this is when Liam announced to an unsuspecting sales clerk "I didn't say 'poop' at Santa!" Who knew? He had been coaching himself for weeks not to say The Word because Santa doesn't like it. I just bet he had a little mantra going through his head the whole time we were waiting: "Do not say poop, do not say poop, do not say poop....."
Well done, Liam! I'm sure Santa is as proud of you as we are.