To Use or Not to Use ...

Your words that is.

We're somewhat on the "conservative" side of the tracks when it comes to what we let our children say. Now this may come as a surprise to some of you who may from time to time have experienced my alter-ego ... that one without children present ... who sometimes lets the "occasional" curse word slip out.

I've always been somewhat intrigued with myself on how I can easily change from "Jenny the Cursing Sailor" to "Mary Poppins" at the sight of a child in or near the room. Not so sure what it says about me ... and this is NOT where you comment folks, but nonetheless, we are pretty strict when it comes to what we let our kids say.

For instance, I think a little child shouldn't say butt. But, yes; butt ... no. Why you ask? Well, b/c it just sounds kinda harsh when your sweet lil' bow-headed one says, "Hey I'm sitting on my butt." or "Mommy, my butt hurts." It just kills the cuteness right off.

I'm not sayin' that our alternate is better. In fact, I'm nearly positive that if she uses tooshie when she's in the 2nd grade she's gonna get beat up. But for now, that's what works for us.

But here's my problem. One of the kiddos went to a play date with a friend recently. When I picked her up, the mom told me the kids were using potty words. Now of course Kindergarten potty words equals "fart." (you just giggled didn't you?) and "poop."

Soooo, on the one hand, if it's something she knows she shouldn't say ... we should probably mention it to her. But on the other hand ... really? It's not that bad. Heck, it's not bad at all. Do I want her to go around saying fart or bootie all the time? No. But when it happens from time to time in the throws of play date fun, well, we can live with it I suppose.

I just don't want it all the time. And my concern is, you let it slip once and well, I don't know about your kids, but that seems to be to them field day on whatever grace you bestowed on them. You know, if you let that slip, then "fart" turns to "poo poo," which turns to "poop" which evolves into "crap" and eventually into "sh&t." Really, we've got to nip the fart-talk in the bud (not butt, we don't say that) ;) because it's like the gateway drug into cussing. Yeah ... pretty scary right? ;)

Moving on ...

So we try to keep the talk clean around here. But the other night, well things got a little heated with the sisters and about two hours after they should have been snoozin' like little angels, my darlings are bellowing from the top of the stairs, "MOOOOOOOO - AAAHHHM!!" Sigh. I get up from my new addiction to the Kardashians to resolve the ever-so-important debate. Which BTW was about whether George Washington wore a wig or not. (thanks upcoming President's Day holiday!) But I digress.

We got the issue resolved but we weren't finished with the drama quite yet. Next complaint lodged: Audrey called Saylah a "bootie spot." Seriously, my first reaction was to laugh. This was not my best choice. That threw the already tired 6-year-old into tears. For which I had to literally bite my lower lip as she continued through her sobs to tell me she did NOT like being called a bootie spot and then I had to try to repair the situation (really so they could go to sleep and I could go back to Kardashians). When interrogated about this offense, Audrey justified her word choice with a "well, I didn't want Saylah to be bossy."

So, I deduce that Audrey did in fact intend to call Say an itty bitty bad toddler word.

You'll have to deduce for yourself what you think a bootie spot is. Me personally, I think it's a preschooler's version of an A-hole.

Oh my ...

Tell Me: What's the worst or funniest word your motor-mouth has ever thrown out there? What did you do?