My mind is blown daily with the things my children say to me.
Out loud. So I can hear them. With little indication that they should stop talking or feel remorse of any sort for their crazy.
They all have their moments, but presently #3 is the one who fills my days with questions I can’t (or won’t as the case may be) answer and statements my 17-inside mind won’t let me not laugh at.
Just the other day he came upstairs from an afternoon brawl with #2 in the basement with tears streaming down his face.
Between the hiccups and the voice filled with moral outrage I determined that he was upset because his brother thinks he’s “dammit”.
As in, “HE WON’T PWAY WIF ME BECAUSE HE THINKS I’M DAMMIT!”
Way to cuss like a 4 year old, I thought. Then I buried my face in the fridge so I could secretly suppress a chuckle before I began the investigative process to determine what that even means.
Personally I don’t use the word dammit. I sorta think there are cooler curse words out there to get my point across. Especially considering dammit is such a 55 year old cuss.
Wait a minute. I think we know a couple of 55-ish year old people to blame this one on. A couple of older relatives The Dudes just so happen to be fresh off a weekend with who enjoy a good dammit every now and again *cough* Mimi & Papa *cough*.
I imagine that during is escapades, #3 semi-correctly gleaned the fact that being a “dammit” is what one gets labeled when they are not particularly enjoyable company to others. Or when they just generally behave like a jerk or do something lame. Or forget to put the Ben-Gay away.
And, since his brother was feeling quite outraged and unwilling to play with him for his wanting to be zombie-Thriller Michael Jackson during a game of Star Wars (total faux pas by the way since everyone knows that there aren’t any zombie-Billie-Jean-singing-moonwalkers on Couruscant) he figured if anyone was ever to feel like a dammit, it was him.
And, in case you’re wondering, heck yeah I laughed. Eventually, when I couldn’t take it anymore, straight into his face. Right after I forced him to repeat it 5 times so I could be sure he was actually saying that he was, in fact, a dammit.
Just like the time we were driving along on our way to meet a friend and he innocently asked me if I thought he was a pussy.
He meant four legged cat (thank you for this Puss in Boots).
I laughed myself to tears.
I tried to not to, but it was either let out a chuckle or twelve or pee myself right there in the front seat of my car.
I went with the laughter, because showing up to a playdate soaking wet with human urine is no way to keep a friend. So shoot me if I can’t get him to stop with his mouth.
I’m like Cam in that Lily curses episode of Modern Family everyone was so up in arms over (which, really, I don’t even get because all of my kids have had their way with the English language; it’s for real life, and I love it that the show delves into real life stuff real life families like mine deal with. For real.).
I can’t stop laughing.*
Even his everyday chatter cracks me up. He’s really quite expressive, and humorous, for a freshly-four-year-old.
I made a Sh*t Dudes Say video for you. Only the production value is shamefully low and it really doesn’t include all of the clips I had of him saying stuff because really, the production value is just shamefully low. And by low I pretty much just mean that I made it myself and got bored with my computer being slow and frustrated with my skills being so craptastic. So you get a snippet of the things a Dude might say. And to imagine that if I had any idea what I was doing, this would be hilarious. Just trust me on that.
*Please don’t bother leaving a comment telling me that laughing is the wrong response. I realize that. Honestly. I even went to college to study stuff like this. Which is why when I laugh I try to hide it as a coughing fit (the kid probably thinks I have a wicked case of emphysema) or something. And really, we don’t have a problem with cussing. I don’t cuss around my children. Or let them watch R rated movies. Or wild orgies. But, they have all floated a cuss word at various points in their lives for different reasons (I’ll have to share #2’s F U story at some point), but it’s not something we have an actual problem with or anything. So calm down members of the anti-cussing club. We don’t need that sh*t over here
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**Like every Thursday, today’s post was inspired by the Great Mama Kat and her Writer’s Workshop. You should check it out some time. It’s pretty amazing.
First let me say – What a beautiful boy? He is going to break some hearts :) I am a newcomer to your blog. I LOVE it! Your post was great! I laughed right along with you, because I am that kind of mom too!
My little girl is behind in speech, so she only says a few words at a time. I have always said that I would take anything she says, as long as she is talking. As you can imagine, I left that door WIDE open.
I curse like a sailor sometimes and haven’t had to watch myself much, because I didn’t have my child until later in life. She doesn’t completely understand what I am saying yet. I take this for granted.
Long story – short – she is now saying “ASS” like a champ. Eating my words!
Look forward to hearing more stories!
My kids haven’t cussed yet, but I know I will crack up when they do. Sometimes my son says “Gosh Darnit” I have no idea where he got that from, probably my MIL. I have totally on multiple occasions let out quite a lot of expletives when my dogs have done something awful. He hasn’t picked up on those… yet.
I love that he thinks “dammit” is a person of sorts. I’d have had to stay hidden in the fridge door for quite a while to keep from laughing.
I think I almost died laughing while reading this! I mean, I couldn’t breathe. So funny and so cute. Thanks for sharing. :)
Haha, I love this! And laughing is for sure the perfect response, I do the whole “hide my face for a minute before responding” thing all the time. Love your blog, Mama Kat’s workshop is great for finding new bloggers to read :)
-Megan
So now let me show my age. When I was younger Bill Cosby had a stand up act. In it he discussed his father’s proliferation of cuss words when frustrated with them. To the point they began to think they were those names.. like Gotdammit, What the Hell.. you get my drift.. Anyway Bill said one day he was out playing after a heavy rain. As a boy he found the first mud puddle he could get into and began splashing about as a boy will do. His father came out the door, immediately angry that he was now soaking wet and covered with mud and began screaming, ” Dammit get in here, What the hell are you doing?” Bill kept right on playing. His father yelled again and again got nothing out of Bill. Finally his father said , ” Boy I am talking to you don’t you ignore me I said get in here Gotdammit” Bill looked at his father and said , ” But Dad you always call me Christ Jesus, I didn’t know you were talking to me.”
Don’t worry, I laugh too! It’s hard not to, right?
I badly wanted to link up with this prompt this week, but I pretty much wrote about the same thing just last week. Always seems to be the way, lately, dammit ;)
not only do I laugh when I kids swear, I secretly beam with pride when it’s used in the right context…
people get so uptight about this kind of stuff…as long as it’s not frequent, it’s really funny…
and I gotta get my kicks where I can
I love that episode of modern family too-its real life- thats what makes it funny. My kid is only 8 months old but I am working so hard on my potty mouth because the last thing i need when she does start talking is to call my father and go “what the f**k is up Papa?” …ultra conservative grandfather would be horrified. And sadly, i couldnt even blame it on the tv because he knows I talk like a trucker!
I so love that he calls you beautiful!
And to hell with that disclaimer- geez get a grip people!
I say dammit all the time, and both my kids picked it up from me. Like I couldn’t even deny it. Big Girl taught all the other kids at daycare how to say it too. She has grown out of the cussing, or at least understands “those are grown up words,” but Bud… OMLord. That boy. The other day I heard him in his room trying to do something, “son of a bitch… son of a bitch… son of a bitch.” Apparently it wasn’t working the way he wanted. And he ALWAYS uses them correctly.
Just the other day I spilled a box of cereal at breakfast and before I could react the midget triplet parted his angelic lips and matter-o-factly said….”Well, shit.” I take complete credit. And was oddly proud he got it in the right context and told him just that.
Of course I had to follow with the self deprication of my own potty mouth and a “perhaps we should say well, poop next time.” But I think we both agreed it just didn’t pack the same punch :)
OH OH CHICA! In the Mommy Household we pair children saying bad words with autism and that equals my daughter saying fantastic phrases, incessiantly at the most inappropriate times. Myriam repeating the speach from A Few Good Men during church and screaming “You can’t handle the truth!” during our Pastors sermon was funny.
Myriam repeating an expletive laden convo that Papa had in the garage after smashing his finger–during her speech therapy session was mortifying!
You’re SO not alone!
mine started saying sh*t (in the right context, to boot) waay younger than i feel comfortable admitting. i blame her father and his addiction to angry birds.
Okay, two things. Firstly, if your kid hasn’t dropped some kinda cuss work, I don’t want to be friends with you. So you and I are good.
Secondly, I was laughing SO hard at the “kitty” thing… I would have had to pull the car over!!!
p.s. I totally tweeted a “Dammit” last night. I’m getting old…
I loved that Modern Family episode because I too am exactly like Cam. Actually both my hubby and I are and it does make it a wee bit difficult to talk about why those certain words are not acceptable when we are both cracking up. My 5 year old is pass the using swear words and onto correcting me with a “Ooooo, that is a bathroom word!” My 2.5 year old on the other hand has a mouth like a truck driver and thinks it’s funny because I can’t stop laughing. Just yesterday as he was going potty, I hear him say, “what the hell!” Um, excuse me? He repeats, “What the hell, I can’t get my chonies down.” Well that just sent me into a fit of laughter that I just walked right out of the bathroom without even helping him. I then realized that I really do need to watch what I say around him because even when I think I am being quiet or he is not in the room, he can still hear me. It is also possible that he is a superhero and his power is super amplified hearing. No?
You know what’s funnier? When the wee ones actually use the cuss word correctly. My #2 did something to his big brother’s controller, looked straight at me and said ‘He is going to be so pissed at me’. After the few seconds it took me to recover, I told him that he isn’t allowed to use that kind of language. Once he left the room I looked at my husband and he was just as astonished as I was that he got it right.
I want #3!
I can’t help but laugh too b/c usually, the first time kids do it, they do it incorrectly (well, not mine. Mine were dead on every time). I don’t curse in front of my kids (directly) either, but there has been a time or five when one has slipped. I burned my hand on the stove. Dammit! I dropped a whole plate of freshly fried chicken. Ain’t this a bitch. Others I kind of make up: what the fuzz? I don’t believe that cursing in general conversation with adults shows a limited vocabulary. Sometimes a good cuss word conveys what could otherwise be said in entire paragraphs. I’m saving valuable time! (I also remember my mother trying in vain to keep me from singing with Funkadelic: Sh*t, goddamn, get off your ass and jam). But when kids do it, it’s just funny (at least when they’re 4, not 11 and “know”). The 2 yr old right now has trouble pronouncing T’s. They come out as F’s. So yes, we are children ourselves and hide his truck just to hear him ask Where’s the truck because it comes out sounding like What the fu…
You know that disclaimer made me roll my eyes. Off with the heads of the non-cussers! Or, at least, the judgers for our (sometimes concealed by coughing) laughter. Bah.
#2 was a chronic truck misprouncer. I swear I was constantly trying to cover that one up at playdates.
That is awesome.
You could box that up, and sell it, it’s so cute.
Don’t be so hard on yourself, though. My family is living proof that kids will “cuss” even if they don’t have the proper tools to work with. My mother’s first language is not English, and she has always been in the Anti-Cursing camp. However, if she got really mad, she’d let a few things fly in Russian, but it was always something pretty benign as far as actual curses go. But then we’d start repeating her. And since the only words we grew up knowing in Russian were curse words, and we lived in a Russian neighborhood….seriously didn’t look so good for Mom. We had absolutely no idea what we were saying (a three year old has absolutely no idea what cholera is, for instance) but we would get a lot of raised eyebrows. They’re gonna learn it no matter what you do. It’s everywhere, dammit. ;)
I am constantly laughing at the sh*t my dudes say. Both my 5YO and 7YO sons say the craziest stuff. And OMG, when my oldest was 2: we were at a funeral. We were standing in the back of the church. People were still sneaking in the doors. And my then 2YO said, “shut the f-ing door!” My huz was mortified but I laughed. Hard. Obviously, since he was 2, he had no idea what he was saying and he probably just repeated something he heard. So funny.
So. F-ing. AWESOME. We’ve only cursed like one time in public (thankfully), but he did ask why they had my grandmother in a suitcase at her funeral, which was pretty insane too.
He is just so stinking cute. He calls you a beautiful girl? Can I borrow him?
My boys let the words fly sometimes. More often than not, it’s Buster, and he does so in such an innocent way. Like “Mommy. Sh*t is a bad word. I’m not supposed to say sh*t. Sometimes you and daddy say sh*t. You’re not supposed to say sh*t. Why do you say sh*t?”
Yep he sure does. That kid is solely responsible for my ego most days. He calls me beautiful girl, or beautiful love, or my sweet love. Just today we were at the doctor and I jokingly asked him if he were married. He says, “Yes beautiful girl. To you of course!” I died a little.
Ok I’m giggling myself right now only because I know the horror all too well. After studying my frustrated 10 year old one day I asked her if she ever cussed in her head.She answered,”All the damn time.” At least by 10 she still filters but man it scares me to think what will come out of her very creative mouth someday…well scares me and kinda makes me proud :) I know I know shameful!
No shame. #3 has used the word hell in perfect context so many times and it always makes me marvel at his brilliance. My fave is when he drags it out in exasperation. Like… What? The. HELL?!
Too freaking funny! I love how little kids interpret language.
And how they interpret adults. I love it when my kids reenact Dumb Dad talking. I somehow like it much less when I see them doing their me impressions.
*eyeroll* This is funny as h*ll to you right now. In 4-10 years (at church), sh*t will not be as entertaining. ASK HOW I KNOW. However, If #2 had walked through and said, “I’m Jesus Christ…” that would have been great.
Laugh. I would. And always be honest with your boys. Tell them that we are all a little dammit sometimes. These precious moments don’t last.
He makes them call him Lord sometimes. Does that count?