It’s a Cussing Good Time at Chez Serenity.

July 13, 2012 at 6:00 am | Posted in Fail (aka: Parenting Gaffes), IVF #6: Quiet Hope | 10 Comments

Won’t know the beta results until this afternoon. Expect a post then.

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Prior to having my son, I had a bit of a… well… trucker mouth. I admit it, one of my favorite swear words was “fuck.” And whenever I got passionate or angry or annoyed, the cuss words would come faster.

Well, clearly I can’t do that anymore. I have a kid, right?

So I’m turning into a bit of a reformed swearer.

Except that I still fuck up sometimes.

Exhbit A:

It was a while back. Lucky was, what, maybe three? And all three of us were in the car. I was talking with Charlie, and getting passionate about something, and started a word which started with f – but paused.

I don’t recall what I was saying, but it WASN’T going to be a swear. At least, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.

Lucky piped up from the back, from his seat:

Fucking!

Shit.

I looked back, and asked him to repeat what he said. From my tone, he knew it was wrong, even though I tried to keep my voice neutral. But Mommy, he protested. I didn’t call anyone that. I said it to MYSELF!

So I told him it wasn’t a word we should use, it wasn’t nice and what we call Bad Words. And that I wanted him to tell me if I used it, and I would do the same with him.

I was all proud of myself for handling it, thinking, okay, great, we’ll make this better.

And then Lucky pipes up: So… that’s a word we only use when Mommy’s mad in the car?

Charlie Brown lost it. He laughed the ENTIRE way home, and then proceeded to tell everyone we knew about the whole damn thing.

Exhibit B:

I’ve mentioned that we have been working with Lucky to eliminate the potty words. He’s a pretty good policer of us, actually. We didn’t realize it, but Charlie and I use the word “stupid” a lot. He’ll give us an oops, and warn us that if we get another, it’ll be a magic.

(And yes, I seem to get an oops at least twice as much as Charlie does. What of it?)

It seems to be working. Even though he thinks the phrase “stinky DIAPER!” is still hilarious, at home anyway he seems to be doing better.

The other night, he asked my help to open up more boards on Angry Birds for him. I don’t play it much, and so I was surprised to see the big fat red ones. And without thinking, I said THIS.

Wow, those red ones are big fatties, aren’t they?

REALLY, Serenity? You think that’s a good idea to say that WITH YOUR FOUR YEAR OLD ON YOUR LAP?

I wish I had a rewind button.

Because of COURSE he found the phrase hysterical. He said it over and over, cracking up each time, even though I told him that wasn’t a nice thing to say and I really needed a magic for it because it wasn’t a good thing to say.

I finally had to tell him that if he didn’t stop saying the phrase, he was going to have to get a time out.

Exhibit C:

Charlie Brown and I had a conversation ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT about the fact that even though I get an oops a lot more than he does, I’ve made some pretty good strides with the swearing stuff, and was really happy about how we were doing.

Thursday morning, Lucky is downstairs and we’re all eating breakfast together. Charlie says, Hey Lucky, tell Mommy what you saw in the potty last night. It was a silly thing, wasn’t it?

So I ask, all interestedly: Wow, what did you see in the potty?

Lucky turns to me and says, Oh, Mommy, it was a FREAKING BEE.

In exactly the same tone I’ve used trying to kill the myriad… FREAKING… hornets that seem to want to build nests on the side door, in our clapboard shingles, in between the screen and the windowsills.

Charlie turns to me, and quietly remarks, gee, I wonder where he got THAT phrase from?

Other kids at school, of course.

🙂