In honor of National Blog Posting month, I am going to attempt to post something every day on my blog during the month of November. I agreed to this challenge with my best friend, who also blogs- so this will be fun!
I posted the following status update on my Facebook tonight:
"After a nice long lay on the horn "you suck" warning to a car that swerved into my lane on the way home from picking up Jude, the little voice in the back seat added, "Asshole." Yeah, that's totally my fault. Note to self: work on road rage potty mouth. Yikes!"
Nothing like the filterless mouth of a child to let you know exactly where you are failing as a parent.
This kind of scenario is always such a challenge for me- because when I hear Jude's teeny tiny voice saying things like "Asshole," my first reaction is to giggle uncontrollably. I've learned in the past that laughing and giving him this kind of reaction does nothing but perpetuate the problem. Kids love an audience, so egging him on is not the best thing to do.
This was the case with the words "Butthole" and "Shit," both of which we've managed to weed back out of his vocabulary (as far as I know anyways). Jude marching around my house chanting,
"Butthole, butthole, butthole" (sounding more like, "Buh-ho, Buh-ho, Buh-ho"), and running up to me with a huge smile on his face exclaiming, "Buh-ho, mommy! BUH-HO!" only made me hide my face and choke back laughter.
"No babydoll," (giggle)- "we don't say that word," (hee hee) "We say bottom."
Uttering the simple, one word phrase, "Asshole"- as in just, "Asshole" period, no exclamation point- is a favorite phrase of mine while on the road. It always follows a good long 3 to 5 second horn honk at some jerk driving like a dip shit very nicely. There need not be any kind of excitement in the tone of voice or getting all loud and crazy with the word. Calling another driver an "Asshole" as just a calm, irritated statement, works great in getting the frustration out without blowing a fuse.
I honestly can't imagine how many times I've laid on the horn and called drivers "Assholes" with Jude in the car throughout the span of his almost 3 years on Earth, but I would go so far as to guess maybe 50? 100 times?
Until today, I never knew he was paying any attention.
Then he said it.
~CAR HONKING~ for 5, 4, 3, 2, 1....
"Asshole."
Did I just hear? Did he just?
I turn around.
"What did you just say?"
"Asshole." He was gazing quietly out of the window, bouncing his feet to "Magic Carpet Ride," which was playing on the stereo.
Clear as a bell. I tried to avert the situation.
"Oh, hassle."
"No Mommy." He turned to look at me seriously. " Asshole."
I didn't respond. I decided on a whim that the best reaction would be no reaction at all- thus making the word uninteresting in hopes that he won't say it again. Probably another fail- but whatever. I'll deal with it the next time, should there be one. All I could do was turn my then owl-eyed attention back to the road and mouth, "OMYGOD!" to myself.
I'll be the first to say it: I've got a dirty pirate mouth. I grew up with a father who never hesitated to express his truest and most candid feelings with his own dirty pirate mouth, even in my youngest, most impressionable years, so I don't really fault myself too much for my runaway tongue. I believe in genetical hard wiring. We spend most of our lives trying to undo the mistakes our parents made on us despite their best efforts, no?
I'm working on my dirty pirate mouth- I really am- but having spent the majority of my life with no 4 letter word filter, it's a total reprogramming operation that I still fail on a daily basis.
The "Asshole" scenario was not nearly as bad as a few months ago when, after fighting with the Play Station to play a Netflix, I tossed the controller aside and got up in a huff to fart around with the stupid thing, only to hear a teeny tiny voice on the couch behind me mumble,
"God Dammit."
Worse than the F bomb? You decide. I never knew how extremely strike-me-down-with-a-bolt-of-lightning bad this saying was to some people until my husband informed me. I'm not religious, and like I said- dad with a dirty pirate mouth- HELLO.
Believe it or not, some of us are still learning the hierarchy of bad words that must be censored more severely so that one may avoid being chased by angry mobs armed with flaming torches and sticks.
Needless to say, damage control was made immediately and I spent some time in parental time out, with a bar of soap in my mouth.
FYI- I no longer use that phrase when battling electronics that aren't cooperating. It's been censored into "Gggggggggggggggg....Garsh Darn it." So much less effective for emphasis, but at least no one will be getting struck down by lightning.
LIKE MY BLOG? CLICK BELOW TO VOTE FOR ME!
