Geemit!

The following is the reason I should win the "Mommy of the Year" award.

My (almost) three year old son says the word, "Dammit."

With reckless abandon. He will not stop. Oh yes, I'm so proud.

He also says, "Jesus Christ."

Yeah. I'm doing a great job.

The funny thing is that we ourselves as upstanding parents and citizens, don't have potty mouths. We rarely, if ever, let a curseword slip. And if we do, it is when we are among the adult crowd. Because we are now uber-aware that we are among tiny child parrots and now go completely wayyy out of our way to make sure there are none uttered in the house by anyone. Ever.

I am not even sure at which point Poops heard the word "dammit" and I'm not sure who said it first . I do know that my husband "someone" is responsible for saying "JC" in response to a certain baby kitty cat who has gotten into something or tripped "someone" or scratched or bit "someone" in that playful but not playful baby kitty cat way.

(Sorry honey-I'll pull you out from under the bus later, I promise.)

So here's what we've done. For "dammit", we've tried everything (dammit!) We've tried getting mad but he loves this way too much and just says it again. But with a smile. Then we've tried "time out" and we've tried switching out the word by saying the following (repeatedly): "We don't say that word, we can use the word 'Jinxies!' if we're upset."

I know, brilliant, right? What a manly word that is. Jinxies. But it was the first thing I thought of in a crunch, and I remembered hearing it from Velma from Scooby Doo.

So now my brilliant son won't just say "Dammit!". He'll say, "We don't say 'dammit', we say 'jinxies!'"

That's just great.

For that other word, the "JC" word, we always say to him the following: "We don't talk about Jesus that way, we talk about how he is a great man or we pray for him in church."

So now he'll yell, "Jesus Christ!" then when he sees my face frown or he sees the 'mommy look', he'll quickly follow with "....is a good man..."

Oh he's just so clever, isn't he?

I've even tried completely ignoring it but I just can't sit back and listen to this so this is not an option. Especially in public. (How embarrassing.)

And let me just say that back in my day (before cell phones and laptops, when bread was only a quarter and you had to walk a mile to get to school in the snow -- barefoot), my mom would smack me in the mouth, strike the fear of God in me, and I'd never be courageous enough to even think of that word. Again. For the rest of my life.

So how is it that I can't get him to stop this?

Well now I just won't tolerate either one of those words -- ever -- and he will either go in his room or in timeout or I will take away a beloved toy if he utters them. And I do one of these variations every time. (This is exhausting.) But I have seen this word usage decline. Slightly. For the most part.

He doesn't say them to my face really anymore, but every once in a while, I'll hear a muffled "dammit" from behind a closed door when he's sitting on the potty by himself followed by a "Jinxies!" as he corrects himself while talking to himself. Progress? I'm not sure.

But now I've got myself a new issue. A new word has sprung up among us that he will say to my face and it is a word he made up.

"Geemit." Hmmmm. It sounds a lot like "Dammit." But it isn't "dammit". And he knows this. So I'm finding myself in a quite an odd fix. I know what he means when he looks at me and says, "Geemit, Mommy! Geemit!"

But he's not saying "Dammit!"

So do I get mad? Because I know what he means? To his credit, he did figure out an alternative exclamation which really is not a curse word and especially not a word that anyone would recognize out in public, really. In fact, it really is quite clever. But of course I will never say this out loud and he will only know this when he reads this in many many years...

Plus, it's not as dainty and feminine as "Jinxies!" But it's not as rude and potty as "Dammit!"

NOW WHAT DO I DO!

Let it slide and let it slip? Be proud of the "Geemit" rather than the "Dammit?"

UGH!!! Why does he have to exclaim exclamations anyway!? He's only (almost) three! What does he really have to be angry about?? Or is because he's (almost) three that he has everything to be angry about because he's figuring out his tiny intense emotions and that's just what they do??

Will this too pass shall? Am I reading too much into this? Should I be laughing? Because if it were someone else's kid, this sure would be funny! And you're probably all thinking "I sure am glad my kid doesn't say those words!" And that's fine. Go ahead, judge. I can take it. On the side and as I write this, I do think it's kind of funny. But as I write that I think, no it's not! So really I am not sure if it's funny or if I am raising a clever little potty mouth. Or both.

A little advice here, dammit please!

Geemit!

https://babytealeaves.blogspot.com/2009/04/geemit.html