Lovely Children, Mrs. Muse-Swings!

My sister Mary sent me this card for my B'day last month. It reminded me of the charming things our children say. Those of you in bloggy land probably have a list stuck in the Baby's First Years book and are planning to use it for blackmailing them later. If you don't, you should. I do. (Jennifer, don't forget to get me that C-note by Friday or I'm tellin about the time you...)

I have a few dozen perfectly good extortion stories in the baby book, but my favorite story of all involves some other person's child:

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A friend of ours used to take his young son, Jason, to work with him. He owned his own business and installed flooring and carpets. He and 4 year old Jason were busy installing wall to wall carpeting one day when the lady of the house peeked around the corner and asked how they were doing. Jason replied: "My Dad says the damn carpet is too f%#*#ing short."

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One of the things I was always proud to announce about my own children is they didn't embarrass me in public. No laying on the grocery store floor kicking and screaming that they wanted the Bat Man juice instead of Welch's. No public accusations of child abuse, no breath holding or beating each other to a pulp in the front yard. Had they acted like some children I have seen through the years I would have packed a taser. But no need. Thank you Jennifer and Jason! They did all of the crazy stuff at home, within reach of the nearest time out corner.

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We often had important discussions at the dinner table. Anything was open to discussion. Like the day Jason asked what the "bad "C" word meant. There's only one bad "C" word that I know, and neither the Mister nor I have ever uttered it. The Mister and I both paused in mid bite. You could hear dust fall. You could hear butter melting.

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I luckily remembered a good rule of thumb: Always make sure you know what your child is really asking. Don't just volunteer information - like that old story about the child who asked his mom where he came from. The mother proceeded to give him the complete explanation of the mom and the dad who loved each other very much and yatta yatta. After explaining the entire reproductive story, she paused and the child said "not that. I just want to know was I born in Detroit or in Oak Park.

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As it happened, I never had to give that little birds and bees speech to my children. Their little friend Stacy gathered all the neighborhood children together and read them the book her mom specifically said NOT to share with other children: "Mommy, Where Did I Come From" It was a lot more specific than just answering Detroit or Oak Park. Learned a few things from it myself. Other than clarifying a few points afterwards, my kids were set for life.

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My little friend Cheryl told me the facts of life when I was about eight. I, of course, didn't believe a word she said and asked mom about it the minute I got home. Heh heh heh. You could hear the dust fall. You could hear butter melt.

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So, anyway, I asked Jason what word it was that he wanted to know about, and assured him it was okay to say it this one time.

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Jason said. "crap"

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The mister and I began to breath again.

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Turns out I said "crap" all the time back then, but meant nothing more than junk and garbage when I said it. If it was good enough for my mom to say, it was good enough for me. So I explained that depending on how it's used, it may not be a bad word at all

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My daughter announced she was very relieved to hear that. She said she thought I spent a good portion of the day swearing when I went through my "pick all this crap up off the stairs before someone falls and breaks their %#$*@ neck" routines.

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I made a point to be more specific about exactly what was on the stairs and quit using the word crap. The rest stayed.

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So, I guess the main lesson here is actually the question we started with: "Who do I have to kill to get a beer around here?!"

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Little Cindy