Thursday, January 29, 2009

Bad Words

When David was between two and three years of age, he was too well behaved to write on walls or smear peanut butter on the table or anything like that.  (actually, so far none of my kids have done any of that "normal" kid stuff).  But he did have one bad habit.  He had a dirty mouth.  

About 4 times a day he would say, " Hey, Ewelina.  Pee."  After getting the appropriate reaction, ("David!")  He would say "Letter, 'P'!!!"  This continued for weeks after we stopped responding to it in any way.  (We had a strict "no potty words unless you're in the bathroom" policy, and the kids never cared to break it, except for David during this short phase, which was more of a display of his wit than a desire to say a forbidden word.)

Also, when he would get offended, and he has always been very sensitive that way, and he wanted to express his frustration and dissappointment in us, he searched his darling little brain for a word that would cut us to the core.  One that would show that he could completely reject our teachings, and be bad, if we pushed him too far.  

And he found the perfect one.  If we ever implied that he had done something he shouldn't, or tried to correct him etc. he would walk off to his room and turn back just to say, "Alcohol!" in a very defiant tone.  Surely alcohol must be such a bad thing that the word alone would shock us horribly.

Sad for him, it never did.  It did, however, give us a good laugh and a great story to pass down for generations.

29 comments:

Kaylynn said...

Good one!

Barbaloot said...

That's great! How nice for you and your husband that the bad word he thinks of is alcohol. If only you can keep it that way... :)

Heather of the EO said...

THAT is classic. What a smarty!

Stephanie said...

very funny. Next time I get mad at my kids, I'm going to run down the hall and scream "Brocolli!" That'll get 'em. :)

Pancake said...

Thats cute!! Better that than other words!! Glad for you all, he out grew that!

Anonymous said...

WHAT a perceptive child! This is what my "Spanish-speaking" grandmother would have called, Wooden Swearing. Not really bad words, but the intent is the same. Other than her nonsensical spanish, her favorite angry word was "Lima Beans!" She cursed them so often that we all grew up thinking they were the most evil vegetable... and they are!

MelancholySmile said...

I love the sincerity and innocence of children! That's a wonderful story to tell him one day. :)

Lara Neves said...

Yes, alcohol is just about as bad as you can get to a young kid. That is too funny.

My Bria was always very strict about her bad words, so if she wanted to call me something when she was in trouble, she'd often say, "You're a bad word, Mommy!"

Annette Lyon said...

Smart kid.

Becky said...

Alcohol, huh? :)

We need to enforce a no-potty-words-unless-you're-going-potty law in my home. We're all fairly disgusting.

Andi Kate, Children's Author said...

Funny. We have the same rule about potty words, but it hasn't been quite as successful so far.

That Girl said...

It's nice that one lesson sunk in!

My kids only say mean things in Portuguese. (Since all the kids they know are Brazilian.)

It really is universal.

charrette said...

Haha. We just had a speaker at church who said when his little sister was really mad at him she would shout "Beer and cigarettes!" because that was the worst thing she could think of.

I think it speaks very highly of your family that that's as bad as the bad words get in your house. My 9-year-old had an assignment to find all the words he could make from the letters in "Merry Christmas". Two of the 20 blanks just say "bad word", circled. I was relieved to see that there wasn't an original bad word erased underneath his bad word label. :) And I have to say I am a wizard at those kind of puzzles, but I cannot for the life of me see more than one potential bad word there. So hopefully his other sone is something like P or Alcohol!

Kazzy said...

LOL My friend at work told me the other day that her little girl was huge into My Fair Lady when she was a kid, and after a being told one too many times to go to bed she turned to her parents and said, "D*** the coffee, d*** Mrs. Pierce, and d*** you!" You have to laugh when kids push those boundaries. Then of course they have to be punished!

wendy said...

How funny that he'd say Alcohol. I'd be giggling like crazy. It sure is hard to teach them "alternative words/behaviors" when we can hardly get the smirks off our faces.

Randi said...

Oh, that's a great story! You have me in giggles.

Melanie Jacobson said...

Now that is cute!

Erin said...

What a witty toddler! He is so clever. My two year old, on the other hand has a bad mouth, plain and simple. And my others didn't. Lizzy has benefited from the help of older siblings teaching her everything from phrases like "stupid" to "nanny nanny boo boo, stick your face in poo poo". We have tried everything to cure her bad habits, from time out, to ignoring, and most recently trying to teach her a silly bad word instead. We got the kids to say "babaganoush" and every time they used it we would scold them and put them in time out. We were hoping she would start using it instead of stupid but didn't work. I'm at a loss.

Unknown said...

That was hillarious. Samuel had a word like that. It was abnormal(nienormalne). When RAdek was was angry with some of his behaviors, he would use this word to name them and put a lot of emotions to it. Sam thought it was a bad word so he started using it. We had a lough.

Morgan Hagey said...

That is awesome. I would rather Henry say THAT than what he DOES say, which is, "Holy crap!" Yeah, I wonder where my three-year-old learned that one....

Erin said...

What a smart kid, to put 2 and 2 together like that. Sometimes I feel like walking around shouting "Alcohol!" too.

Heather said...

When my oldest was 4 and dealing with chemotherapy, she would shout "Yucky!" and "Baby!" at the nurses because those were the worst insults she could think of when they were like giving her shots and other unpleasant things.

Rebecca Blevins said...

We are a family of potty word mouths, but the worst insult was yelled at me by my then six-year-old:

"Mommy, YOU'RE FIRED!"

At times I can only wish....

Lesley said...

That is hilarious! He definitely knows a bad word when he hears it!

Heidi said...

Well, all I can say to that is cigarretes! (I try to avoid that word since I don't really know how to spell it. Maybe you noticed. What can I say? I'm just a nice Mormon girl who is trying to be shocking in a sweet naive way . . .)

Anne said...

I love that boy!!!

Kate said...

How funny!!! It is amazing what kids will say and do. I enjoy your blog, great post.

Little GrumpyAngel said...

Ha-ha! This made me laugh. Someone should write a book about kids and language. When my son was toddler he thought "ugly" meant rude or mean, so when he wanted to say "You are rude", he said "You are ugly!" It was hilarious.

melissabastow said...

My kids just do bad kid stuff - - WHY?!!! And we didn't have the potty talk problem until kindergarten started, and now it's all about the farts.