Watch What You Say (Update 2)

CRAPINSKI X 2!!   That wasn’t supposed to happen!  *internal head screaming commences*

Because I am a horrible procrastinater and a lover of good intentions and poor follow through, I usually auto-publish my post to force myself to blog consistently.  If I know my blog will be automatically published on Tuesdays and Fridays at 10 a.m. sharp, I will have it finished days before. 

Except for today.  Ugh. 

I wasn’t finished with my post.  I planned to finish this afternoon while the kids napped, so I cancelled the auto-publish and went about my day.  Except for one minor detail (Have I ever mentioned I am not one for details? I’m a big picture kinda gal.); I forgot to “update” the change and the post was published right on schedule. 

After deleting that link, I tried to finish my day’s post when the kids wanted food. Really? I’m almost finished. Oh, the inconveniences! So I clicked “save draft” only to come back and find that I actually clicked “publish” and sent my unedited, unfinished half draft out into the blogosphere… again!  Crappity, crap, crap, crap!! This is turning out to be a crapoloa of a day.

Technology: 106,437 106,438   Me: 3 (learning how to turn on the laptop, to navigate social media, and to use Word)

Forgive my neglect for detail.  I like to think it is part of my charm.  =)

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When I was young, I had a mouth that rivaled any sailor. Guaranteed. When I was in my late twenties, I began to realize that maybe my dad was right when he would say, “There are over 4000 words in the English language, pick the ones that don’t make you look ignorant.”

So I traded in all the ignorant-sounding potty words for a less offensive, all-occasion potty word: crap.

I thought it was a good trade, and I found it quite the versatile expletive (click here). I peppered my conversations with all forms of crap. That is until my second child came along.

F is a firecracker. Seriously. She’s beautiful and sparkly and amazingly entertaining by nature, but you have to hang tight during the short fuses, loud explosions and choking smoke. Sometimes there are more loud explosions and choking smoke than sparkle and amazement, but she is only 8.  Give her time.

She’s also a tremendously fast learner. I have come to understand that is not always a blessing. She keeps me on my toes and our house hopping.

When she was about 2, I used to sit in an oversized fluffily over-stuffed arm chair in my home office reading a book while F watched PBS. We could do that because her older sister, G, was usually at the pool with her friends and we hadn’t adopted her younger brother, Z, yet.  It was our little bonding time.

F, G and I were happily embedded in the fluffily over-stuffed arm chair one summer afternoon. F sat on my lap sucking madly on her binky (the pacifier who was her best friend until she was 3 – don’t judge) while G and I snuggled next to one another reading books from my self-imposed summer reading list when out of nowhere F’s binky launches from her mouth in a perfect arch, hitting the fabric covered filing cabinet that doubled as a tv stand, bounced on the floor and then out of sight.  Her big brown eyes instantly grew three times bigger than normal and a frantic look washed over her face.

“Uh oh” she said, looking up at me as if I were the only one who could stop her world from crumbling.

“What?” I asked her. “You better get down and look for it.”  My hope was if I refused to care about her binky that she would also.  I had tried to ween her from the blasted thing for about six months, but she was sly.  She hid them all over the house – in the back of drawers, on window ledges behind curtains, inside of Mr. Potato Head – and then would throw a red-hot fit that makes the Earth’s core ice over until we piled in the car and bought her a new one. She was good.

Instead of just sitting back in the chair and enjoying the rest of whatever the PBS station was airing, she jumped down onto her chubby pigeon-toed feet and started searching for it.  Hands on her hips, she twisted and leaned from side to side in a search-simulation move. Not finding it she stood straight up looked me dead in the eye and said, “Cap.”  Then looking down toward the floor, she said with an enormous 2-year-old diva sigh, “Cap, cap, cap. No find binky.”

I heard a breathy, almost silent “oooooooohh” escape from G as if warning her little sister that she had said a worty dird. I turned to look at G to find her giving me the “oh snap, you’re in trouble” look. I felt like I had been caught red handed, with what I wasn’t sure. But I definitely felt a great amount of guilt ridden shock.

I have to admit that at that moment the only thought going through my head was “Oh, crap!”

Sheepishly, I looked at G and said, “Maybe I should change my vocabulary.”

I did try. Over the following year (and beyond) I tried new forms of expression: “oh, pickles” was the dominant one for a while, but it never caught on. “Pooper scoops” did, however.  I have come to the conclusion that if “crap” is the worst my kids say, I’m cool with that. There are a lot worse things I could be teaching my kids.  How to be a hypercrite for one. A back-stabber for another. Or even a liar or a drunk.

In the sceme of things, saying “crap” seems almost clean.  And if you still take umbrage, I am trying to teach them how to use it as a morpheme.