The First Curse Word

When I was pregnant with the munchkins, I was terrified that I might do something wrong. I wanted desperately to make sure they were smart and tall and healthy and had happy childhoods and became productive members of society and my list went on and on and on. I read book after book trying to make sure they became the best people they could be and I did the best I could for them. I was a little high strung at the time. That moment has passed.

Now, my list is shorter. At the end of the day, if the entire list can be answered affirmatively, it has been a good day.

1. Are the munchkins both still alive?
2. Do they still possess all of their limbs?
3. Do they still possess all of their digits?
4. Have we avoided a trip to the emergency room?

By the time the boys were about 18 months old, I had loosened up quite a bit from the time when I was reading all of the books and terrified I would screw up my children, but I would still play some classical music in my car when they were with me. Some book somewhere had proclaimed that classical music would foster brain growth, so I played classical music for them. Or rather, I played the one classical music CD I had because I liked it, which was Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker.

So on one of those days when I was driving the boys home from Ed's office, I was playing Tchaikovsky and thinking about how wonderful of a mother I was, helping with their brain development and all. They had just started talking. My thoughts about my fantastic mothering were interrupted by my sweet baby Logan talking in the background. I finally decided to listen to what he was saying. My sweet little baby was grabbing his feet and saying, "sonofabitch, sonofabitch, sonofabitch, sonofabitch." There was no malice in his tone. He was just trying the words on for size, letting them roll off his tongue.

The thought that went through my head was, Well, son of a bitch, where did he hear that?

The words that actually came out of my mouth were, Well, son of a bitch, OHHHH!

I laughed at myself and my baby. I told Big Daddy Awesome about the whole thing. We talked about cutting the curse words out of our vocabulary and realized that would be an exercise in futility for us.

Now, those words are called "Grown up words" and the munchkins make an effort not to say them in front of us. Hey, they're still alive with all of their limbs.