Big Ears and Bad Words

                It is definitely true that children are little sponges.  Little sponges with big ears.  I do not have the best language.  I grew up in New Jersey, and I figure that is a good excuse.  My husband has always warned me to watch my language around L, which is why I always get an even bigger chuckle when he picks up something bad from someone else. 

                A friend was over with her daughter, telling me a story of how a little child had just been lost at Target, but when they took her to lost and found to try to page her mother, she only knew her mom as “mommy.”  After hearing this, my friend felt it was important that he daughter know her name and her husband’s name. 

                I thought this was great, and decided to see how L would do. 

                “L, what is your father’s name?” 

                “Dadad’n.”  You see, where as I am “My Mom,” he coined “Dadad’n” for his father. 

                “Right, but what is his real name?  The name I call him?”

                He knew the answer, so we proceeded.  “What is my name?”

                “My Mom.”

                “My other name.  What do you hear Dadad’n call me?”

                “Oh Friggin!!”

                Awesome.  So if you are in Target and hear, “Would Oh Friggin please report to customer service?” you can assume that L is wandering around somewhere unattended.   While I could have been annoyed, I did take pleasure in the fact that he had picked up a phrase like that, and it wasn’t my fault.

                This wasn’t the only time his big ears picked up someone else’s poor choice of words.  We decided to take a big family vacation.  My parents, my father-in-law, and my family headed to the beach together.  On the way back to the house from the zoo, my parents had a somewhat heated conversation where EO let a choice phrase slip.  Because EO is a hero in my son’s eyes, this was seen as a fun phrase.  And so, when he dropped a toy the next day, he immediately shouted, “God D#mn it!” 

                We ignored it the first time, but it appeared to stick.  When waves washed away a shell the next day, he yelled it.  When he didn’t get the snack he wanted, he mumbled it under his breath.  It was clear we needed to nip this in the bud.  We felt the best way to do this was to give him something fun to say instead.  And so, “Oh Noodle!” was born.

                He liked his new phrase, and we were glad that the former one was gone.  The next week, L went to visit my parents.  Their friends came over and he was playing with them.  When he dropped a toy, he yelled, “Oh Noodle!”  My parents’ friends thought this was humorous.

                “Oh noodle?” they asked him.

                “Yep.  I’m not supposed to say, “God d*mn it.”