Recently Tommy’s picked up a few not-so-nice sayings. They’re not completely awful, but not what you’d expect an almost-three-year-old to utter…
“I’m going to go sit in my friggin’ Elmo chair.” Elmo is Tommy’s time-out buddy in his room. When he’s naughty, he goes to his room and sits in this special chair until Mommy or Daddy tell him he can come back downstairs (usually all of two minutes). One extra-sassy afternoon he was sent to said naughty spot. I did a quick spot check to make sure he was there, only to find him playing by the door instead. So, I got a little ticked and told him to get back in his friggin’ Elmo chair. Way to go, Mommy…now when he’s sent to his room, he says this with much gusto!
“If I say “damn” I get ‘Basco in my mouth.” For those of you who know Tommy, you know he has a rich vocabulary. Those of you who know me, you know my tongue slips on a few expletives now and then. I try SO hard not to let it fly when the kids are around, but I’m only human. Tommy started using the phrase “damn it” recently, and though we were impressed that it is usually said in the proper context, we can’t let our little guy go around saying that. In an effort to squelch the word before it became a permanent part of his lexicon, I took a page out of a friend’s parenting playbook and administered a tiny amount of Tobasco sauce on his tongue. Now when he makes an adult word infraction, it’s immediately followed with “I don’t want ‘Basco, Mommy!” Then last night he came up with “If I say “damn” I get ‘Basco in my mouth,” and it took every ounce of self-control not to crack up right then and there.