You'd better watch your mouth

Like most 2 year olds, O is a little parrot and it makes for some hilarious situations. There was the time that he jumped off the couch with too much forward trajectory and saved himself by rolling and bounding to his feet. The funny thing was, as he jumped up he yelled, 'Jesus!' in the way you do when you're happy to have made it out alive. I laughed for days about that one. Every once and a while I'll hear him say, "damn it!" when what he's doing goes wrong. The good news is that I haven't heard any serious swear words out of his mouth in a very long time. The bad news is, it seems that even though I'm doing well at not using the F word or other high end swears, I'm apparently not doing very well at completely cutting swearing out. (I say 'I' since I know it's me and not Nick that has that problem.)

If the swearing isn't bad enough, lately when I put him in time out he will start yelling, "Don't beat me!" or "Don't smack me!". These are both things I've threatened him with but never in that context. I have threatened to smack his bum if he's squirming too much during a diaper change for example, but tell that to social services when they hear him yelling from his naughty chair! And my personal favorite: when he gets angry at me and he starts wagging his finger and asking if I need to go to time out. Or when he gives me the big "NO! Do you understand me?"

I admit that it makes me cringe a little when I hear some of the things he says. It's not that I feel guilty, I don't think I'm saying anything really wrong. I don't think he's going to end up in therapy someday because of it and I'm sure I'm not alone in these kind of threats and expletives. But, the words sure do sound different coming out of that tiny, innocent mouth. But most times it just gives me a really good laugh.