I clucked up by using curse words around my kids. My mouth has not been very clean. If I had a bar of Organic soap for every time that I cursed around my kids, I would have a lot of soap. I saw it coming, too. My husband is a sailor after all. I always thought, “At least I don’t curse as much as Zac!” Well, it finally bit me in the sass. Luckily, Hannah misinterpreted my lingo and has adapted a much sweeter word into her vocabulary.
I’m having a hard time wrangling Hannah while wearing Audrey. Usually around 4 PM, I just hit that breaking point where I can’t use the ‘wonderful Mommy script’ anymore. I can only explain to Hannah, “Mommy doesn’t like you to climb the furniture” while blocking her and redirecting her to a new activity so many times before my inner voice takes over and snaps. Generally this is because Audrey has just pulled my nipple with her in a graceful swan dive out of my arms. My tension gets the better of me, and as Hannah reaches for a dangerous object like the knives after precariously climbing the bar stool, I lose it. I’ve said s.h.i.t. in front of my kid more times than I care to admit and she learned. But, as with most things I imagine she will learn from me, she has interpreted it in a better way. Hannah thinks I said ‘SIT.’
Now, when Hannah reaches her dangerous perch or climbs the dinner table, she announces, ‘SIT’ and plops down on her bum. I have to say that I think it’s awesome that she interpreted my curse word like this. First of all, she’s not saying it the bad way so I won’t get a mean glare in public. She’s also sitting down and preventing herself from injury. Now that I’ve learned my lesson, I can start spelling out curse words like the smart Moms do. How else will I get my husband to turn off the d.a.m.n. TV when the kids are in the room?
I know that just by writing this, I’ll have lost the magical power of the ‘sit’ word, but it was great while it lasted. So I have to ask. How do you keep your vocab clean around the kids? Do you use silly words to replace bad words or do you just not say them?
This is so funny! You really lucked out with that one
I just don’t say them, but years of teaching helped me to prepare for that.
LOL! This cracked me up! I don’t say them usually in kid-friendly situations or I use other similar sounding words like — sugar, fire engine and dominoes!
That’s smart! I got a few good suggestions from the wise women in my family so I’ve got to update my vocab.