The "D" Word

I don't have a potty mouth, but occasionally I let one slip. Worse even, sometimes the kids are around to hear it. I try. Really I do. But sometimes the situation just calls for a bad word.

Usually, if I catch myself saying one, I try to say it under my breath ... but not always. They're never awful or ugly words, but still, they're not words that five year old children should be hearing.

And using.

And using correctly.

The other night in the bathtub, Dude was playing with his pirate ship. One of the pirates fell out of the crow's nest and into the bath water. As this happens, I hear Dude say, "Dammit!". We had a very stern talk about how that was not an appropriate word for little boys to be saying, and he promised to never say it again. Problem solved.

Then two days later we were in the soccer mom mobile on our way to pick up Sister from her after school program. Dude was going through his backpack looking for something, when from the back seat I hear, "Damn!". Apparently he had forgotten something at daycare and this upset him.

And this from the kid who didn't want to say, "What the hell!" when he thought I was driving too fast!

So once we were at home, we had another stern discussion. He again promised never to utter the "D" word, and I promised not to say it around him anymore. Okay, so I slipped up once. Just once, though, in a week. That's pretty good, right?

He reminds me daily that he is remembering not to say the "D" word. He also happily pointed out to me on the occasion of my one slip up that I HAD said it ... and he had not.

Photo courtesy of Alice Chaos.