The swear jar

This likely isn’t going to come as a surprise to some, but I have a confession to make.  I have a potty mouth.  It’s something that I strive to control, and can pretty effectively hide it when I need to, but once I get started I swear like a trucker.  This only really became a problem after Woo was born and started to echo the things that we said.

When I was on maternity leave there were large chunks of the day where I had two choices, I could talk to Woo, or I could talk to myself.  While I did talk to Woo a tonne, I often wanted a response and could only get that from myself.  The more I talked, the more I realized that I didn’t need a filter.  My days were coloured with many an expletive.  This went on for about six months, until our early talker’s babbles became words and he added new ones every day.  We instituted the swear jar, where everyone had to add a dollar for every curse made in the presence of the lil one and two dollars for any word that Woo repeated (each time it was repeated).*  I added one hundred and twenty dollars to Woo’s piggy bank in the first week. Thankfully I got better, but not before I had added over five hundred dollars.

Part of getting better involved learning new ways to express my agitation/anger/dismay with things.  One of my favourite phrases became “what the heck?!”, which is infinitely better than the alternative.  So much so, that I thought it was darling when Goose started saying it a while back. At first she just echoed my usage, but then branched out and began to use it appropriately, and without prompting.  I was a little proud.

Lately she has started to put her own spin on it.  Always monkeying with the word heck, she has gone through several different pronunciations. First it was HE-ECK, then HI-YUCK, and most recently HUCK.  Goose goes around saying “what the HUCK”.  That is just way to close to a word that I have never said near her, but I can see where this is going. It involves bringing back the swear jar, as I know this will get pinned on me.

Fuck.

 

*This rule as actually (and thankfully) only been invoked once. Shortly before Goose was born Willy was tasked with putting our very nocturnal and hard to get back to sleep boy back to sleep.  It took a long period of cuddling and rocking, when finally Willy put Woo back in bed.  Just as Willy was creeping away, the bed creaked, Woo woke and Willy whispered “oh fuck”.  There was a long and silent pause before a sweet little boy voice repeated (three times) what his dad had said.  I heard this all on the monitor, so when Willy eventually returned to bed, I leaned over and whispered, “That’ll be eight dollars”.*

Category: life, Lils, Parenting | 5 comments

  • Ally Bean says:

    This is a great story. Little pitchers have big ears, eh? Maybe Goose could be encouraged to go the “D” route instead of the “F” route. That is she could say: “what the duck” instead of the alternative.

  • Deb says:

    I can relate! I’m the one that had Monkey saying ‘fuck’ repeatedly after I said it once under my breath (or so I thought) when she was quite young and just starting to speak. Since, she’s picked up “What the?” from a friend at school. She’s now saying “What the heck”, but did come out with a “What the hell” once and looked at me immediately for my reaction. She *knew* it was wrong and was testing me. She’s back to ‘heck’ and hasn’t said it again 🙂 Good luck with huck! 🙂

  • Ross Brown says:

    Loved this story!

    It reminded me of the first time that I brought my wife (when she was only my new girlfriend) to my sister’s house. My sister was in the military and had a 3-year-old daughter.

    At one point during the visit, my niece asked my sister for a glass of juice: “I’m sorry,” my sister said, “we’re out of juice.”

    That 3-year-old inhaled loudly through her nostrils and then shouted “Jesus f*cking Christ!” in frustration.

    You could have heard a pin drop.

  • Heather says:

    Love it! Thanks for the laugh today 😉

    Miss you all!

  • Lynn says:

    I feel ya. This will probably be a surprise to you too, but I also swear like a trucker. It’s terrible, even the dreaded F word is not off limits on a casual day to day basis. I’m sure I’m going to be That Mom, the one with the kids who are teaching all the other kids the bad words. Fucking hell.

    I need a swear jar :).


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