Watching My Mouth

It really is time to start watching my mouth around the house. Tonight after dinner Somnia came into the kitchen and uttered the phrase, “mama has jugs.” Wow, how do you react to that? You really retrace your language steps when confronted with such words from your child.

Can’t deny the truth in the statement and that I have probably uttered a similar phrase numerous times over the last few weeks with mama being pregnant and all. That said, and regardless of how true it may be, you really don’t need your kid going and repeating these kinds of things at day care. Personally, I find it innocent and true. I have no hang-ups about talking about such things with my kid. That said, many people do and I don’t want to impose my language on their kids via my child any more than I want their parents imposing habits or language on my child that I might find offensive (like racism, xenophobia etc…) via their children.

It brings me back to an even funnier episode when we were making an offer on our house at the real estate agent’s office. This was our first home purchase so I was a tad nervous about laying out an offer for such a large quantity of money. As we completed signing the papers, the agent went out to make photocopies. I don’t know if Somnia sensed my nervousness or what but the second the agent crossed the threshhold back into her office Somnia belted out “Papa, don’t fart in this lady’s office.” To this day, I can’t for the life of me even come up with a loose-fitting theory on why Somnia would have said such a thing at such an inopportune time. It was not like we were talking about farts while the lady was out making photocopies. I don’t think there had even been any fart conversations or episodes that whole day.

Dealt with that card of inappropriateness from your kid, you are really left with no escape. I really had not farted nor had I considered farting in her office. Yet, everyone takes for granted that kids repeat the truth, so that lady had to be assuming that I had truly heated a hole into her chair. I knew she was thinking this and that I had no way out so I simply looked at her and replied, “what do you say that?” Denial would have only made me look guiltier. I then turned to Somnia and asked aloud, “Why? What would make you say such a thing?” Somnia, knowing from my beet red face that I was affected by her outburst, was instantly aware of her linguistic faux pas.

I concluded the episode by looking at the agent and telling her, “tonight you have one hell of a funny story to tell your family at dinner.” We all laughed a bit and pressed on. Regardless of my real innocence, for the rest of her life she will tell her friends the story of the nasty pig that rotted in her office while she was at the photocopier. For the rest of mine, I will really try to watch my topics of discussion in front of kids.

Posted by chris keesey at January 21, 2006 09:26 PM