What the f*&^ did he just say?

There was a time, not so long ago, that I cursed like it was my job.  My husband did too.  Truth- we still fight this terrible habit every day and usually win unless someone pees on the floor, we have to hang something on the wall or there's a lego lodged in our dog's throat.  My wonderful, lovely son has learned sooo much from us....including a few choice words.

This time last year, when my son was nearing his third birthday, I thought I caught him say the F word.  He was playing by himself and he said it in this very exhausted, annoyed, I've given up kind of way.....much the way I use used to use it.  As in, "My Lightning McQueen car has run out of gas......ahhhhh fu**...." (My husband's version has a lot more explosive passion when used.)  I wasn't entirely sure I had heard him right so I pretended it didn't happen.

As the day went on, I absolutely heard it multiple times...used in the mommy way and then used in the daddy way.  I. Was. Horrified.  I had no idea what to do so I completely ignored it until my husband got home.  We talked it over and came to this conclusion....we would never, ever, ever use that word again (yeah-- that rule stuck) and we would ignore it instead of drawing attention to it for a week to see if he stopped using it on his own.

Ignoring it was ridiculous-- our son used it every day all day.  The highlight of the week was buying our Christmas tree.  Being the New Yorkers that we were last year, we bought our Christmas tree at the corner bodega on our street.  We checked out each tree on a small strip of sidewalk as busy locals squeezed by on the their way to and fro.  Our son started dancing and jumping up and down singing a new song he had just made up on the spot.  The song had one word......fu**.  He was singing it at the top of his lungs, bouncing around each tree and every person, festively gracing the neighborhood with his vocal ability-entertaining and alarming one and all.

When we got home, my husband and my innocent son had a long talk.  He was told to never use it again.  Every time he used it the rest of the weekend, he was sent to his room.  He was confused and upset and couldn't really put it all together.  It was easily complicated by my outburst when he asked me for a 'fork' and I misunderstood him.  Poor kid just wanted to eat his pasta.

The last time he dared to use that word was a classic.  My son got scared in the middle of the night and he ended up nestled between my husband and me.  Thankfully, thankfully my husband falls asleep really fast.  But- I was laying there in the dark just starting to drift away.  Out of nowhere....I hear my son whisper....'fuck".....just once, quiet as quiet can be in the dark.  I think it was a little boy way of answering the philosophical question "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"  He was thinking 'if I whisper it in the dark, will anyone hear it, will they think I said it, will it get me in trouble, is the dark a blanket for bad deeds, etc.'  Brilliant if you ask me.  I elbowed him, told him to go to sleep, rolled over on my side and laughed quietly into my pillow for a solid five minutes.