My daughter is the perfect mix of my husband and I. His cheeks and beautiful smile, my eyes and wild hair. His stubborn attitude, my temper. In fact, my personality really. She’s confident, fun, caring and sweet. She’s stroppy, difficult and has a wonderfully unique grasp of the vernacular.
Her words are flowing with ease. Her sentences are adorable. I hear myself when she talks all the time.
When someone spills a drink, she says, “Don’t worry, it happens”.
When a fragile item is being carried, she often advises the carrier, to “hold it delicately”.
When playing with friends, I can always hear her say “Go careful!”.
She has enough vocabulary to be quite bossy too:
- Stop talking!
- You are being very difficult
- You need to listen to me
- Sit over here next to me
- Move Mummy!
She has copied, some of my mum’s, delightful comments too like; Droopy Drawers and Stroppy Knickers! She is also going through a phase of telling everyone, that her Daddy has a big bum!
It’s all fun and games until someone drops the F-bomb! There is no hiding place for me in this regard. If my daughter swears, it will be because she heard it from me first.
My husband is a saint when it comes to profanity. He gets through his day, with the odd ‘crap’ and a dash of ‘Fiddlesticks’! My days are somewhat more passionate. My daughter’s first official swear word was Bugger. Beautifully enunciated like a pro, she sounded adorable.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not encouraging my daughter to swear, that would be ridiculous. That said, we are together 24/7, she hears the odd expletive from yours truly. When some complete twat, blocks me in a car park or I screw up at a roundabout; Fiddlesticks just doesn’t quite hit the spot.
I try my best, not to swear in front of my daughter at all but my best isn’t good enough. Why is it, that toddlers jumble their words, all the time but when it comes to swearing, they nail that delivery right out the gate!
Example? Yes unfortunately I have a few:
I was telling my daughter, that I couldn’t come to her right that second, as I was busy. Over and over, I apologised and advised her I wouldn’t be long. Obviously sick of this, she stormed off, threw herself on the sofa and muttered, “fuck sake!”
As a parent you are supposed to ignore these little blips and not draw attention to them. I failed. I went straight into ‘High Horse’ mode and demanded she repeat herself. I basically did not want to believe what I had heard. Then getting myself in a complete tizzy, I demanded to know, where she heard such a bad word! No escaping that answer…”Mummy”…Shit!
Another F-bomb followed a few weeks later in the car. Turns out I wasn’t swearing quietly to myself. As she merrily repeated my bad word, I was annoyed at myself, for yet another slip. Only compounding things by voicing my annoyance with “Bollocks!”. Wow, I need to just stop!
Last week I was driving my daughter to the hospital, when two vehicles nearly collided in front of me. I gasped but in that moment, I controlled my potty mouth. All that came out of me was “Wow!”
As I drove passed the two vehicles, that were embracing their near miss, my daughter wanted to know what I had said and what was going on. I quickly reassured her, that I said nothing and everything was fine. She was clearly anticipating a different response, as her follow up question was,
“Did you say Fucking?”.
Determined not to draw attention to this colourful line of questioning, I just kept on driving. Mortified. From now on…it’s Fiddlesticks from here on out!