17 February 2009

"want more fuck" or "no shit mama!"*

*Note the quotation marks. I have not said a swear word in several months. I did not say these swear words. My not quite two year old did.

I'd heard the stories about small children who make the f-sound instead of the t-sound and how it leads to dirty looks from people whose children were obviously raised properly with a grasp of phonics upon leaving the womb. Since Mr. Independent has been calling trucks "rucks!" for months, I assumed I was safe from dirty looks related to my child's dirty language. This weekend I had an inkling that I might be wrong.
We were in the car. I don't remember where we were going or where we were coming from, but I thought I heard an excited "fuck!" from the backseat. I turned my head slightly and asked, "What's that, baby?"
"Ruck!" came the excited reply. I felt assured that I'd imagined it.
I didn't imagine it today. Driving home from daycare we saw a truck.
"Look, Mr. Independent! It's a truck!"
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" he squealed wriggling with delight. His arms waved and his entire body shook with joy as we passed the truck.
Then: "More fuck? More fuck?"
"I don't know, sweet boy. Maybe we'll see more trucks." I honestly didn't know if I wanted to see more or not. I didn't know if I was more amused or mortified by this recent trend.
"More FUCK! WANT MORE FUCK! WANTMOREFUCK!" He became more and more agitated and less and less inclined to accept my insistence that I am not, in fact, in charge of whether or not we see trucks on the drive home. Luckily an airplane distracted him, and he forgot all about the trucks.
But he didn't forget about sitting. Mr. Independent has definite ideas of who should sit, when they should sit, and where they should sit. If I'm sitting, and he doesn't want me to be sitting somewhere, he'll say, "Get up, Mama!" When several "Get up, Mamas!" don't work, he switches tactics. "No shit Mama! No shit!" His volume increases until I am caught in that parenting no-man's land of letting him get what he wants (me getting up) or listening to him yell "No shit Mama!" at Bible study. Tonight, I opted for getting up and leaving.

11 February 2009

proud

This is who I married.
Click

08 February 2009