Well, that’s a relief. Nothing better than being reassured by your three year old that she didn’t say that word you thought she said. Except then she says it. Three times.
Boy, those f-bombs go off with a bang, don’t they?
The scene: we’re driving out of town, hubs and I chatting in the front seat, kids in the back. I can hear them talking as we try to carry on a conversation up front, but I don’t really tune in until I hear our seven year old say “You really can say that word! You guys should hear her say it.” The three year old giggles and he says to her “say it!”
“Chev-ro-let!” she giggles out, clear as a bell. Okay, so they must be car-watching. Nice to know they are entertaining themselves back there. Maybe they’re getting old enough for more road trips, won’t that be fun? (These are the thoughts of a mama dreaming, by the way. Don’t believe it for a second.)
So we fuss over her excellent pronunciation, and I repeat it back and forth with her. “Chevrolet.” “Chevrolet?” Yes, good job.
Then we hear her say quietly: “Chev.”
Her dad has been half-hearing the conversation, half not and as I perk my ears up, he thinks he hears what I think I hear. Because it doesn’t really sound like “Chev.” It sounds like it rhymes with “fit”, to be honest. So he replies “what did you say?” and then I think I’ve heard wrong and I ask too and then it’s this funny little moment where we are so worried that our little preschooler has said “shit” that we sort of pounce. Nope, all clear. Chevrolet to Chev. Gotcha.
We keep driving, muffling our giggles over the misunderstanding when we hear her murmur from the back: “I didn’t say it! I didn’t say that word you think I said!”
I open my mouth to reply and she continues “I didn’t say f—.”
Collective gasp.
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t say f—.”
And then one more, under her breath, for good measure,“f—.”
And just like I did with her brother when he first stumbled across this wretchedly thin ice, I stumbled through a firm reply, ensuring she would know to never use that word again. I’m pretty sure my eyes were throwing daggers around the inside of the car lest anyone dare laugh or snort during my speech.
(Just so we’re clear, I’m totally aware that the language issue will be different the second time around. Our two kids are very different, and this will be no exception. This, after all, is the three year old that looked at me sideways while waiting in an examination room at the doctor’s and warned me haughtily, “Now, don’t you say penis in here…”)
“But Daddy uses it all the time…”
Yes, yes, he does, doesn’t he? Actually, Mommy flings that one around pretty regularly too, she’s just more careful about timing. (Daddy, by the way, is currently staring out the window, desperately trying not to laugh.)
Ah well. It was bound to happen. And we haven’t heard it since. I’m just thankful neither kid repeated it during the toddler-parrot-repetition stage. I had visions when my first started talking of my children dropping f-bombs at the grocery store, at school, at a friend’s house.
Don’t laugh, I’m pretending we’re out of the woods.
Hey, is that a tree?
Uh oh.
Ha! When Q started saying unpleasant words, we told him that some words are “grown up” words (because, let’s face it, I suck at censoring). We assured him that when he knew what they meant, we could talk about him using them (like that’ll happen). Wanna know what followed that convo? For months.
“Can I say shit?”
“Can I say jerk?”
“How about ass?”
“I can say Heck, right? What about Hell?”
“F*ck is a grown-up word, right?”
(during a baptism) “Why does that man keep saying JESUS CHRIST!”
Oh, yes…parenting win!
Ha. That’s all kinds of awesome. Even when we’re winning, we’re losing. Or maybe when we’re losing, we’re winning? It’s getting really hard to tell… ; )