Brontee is one of five siblings with a teenage sister and three animated, outgoing, overly-protective brothers aged ten and below. The boys have reportedly done handsprings to pick up toys their sister was about to get busted for not putting away herself and reprimanded their mum for unfairly scolding their prized little princess. Closing in on her third birthday, Brontee is a beautiful, bright little girl and I am quite confidant she’ll be lording over her brothers just as soon as she works out how much power the boys have bestowed upon her.
But for now, the young men not allowed to cuss are reveling in Brontee’s mispronunciation of the word smack.
I love this. First because parents today can forever capture these precious moments with the flip of a mobile phone and second because it took me back to the days when my own kids were young and tripped over the F Bomb for the first time. Like the littlie in this clip my oldest nephew couldn’t say fire truck without turning it into fiyahfuck – which he said loudly and with great enthusiasm – which was unfortunate as my prudish brother was a fireman and loved taking his son to his station house.
My youngest daughter confused fuck with frog which made her siblings giggle with glee and so struck the funnybone of a family friend that he once absconded with the gold ceramic frog that lived in my bathroom and showed up with it at Pizza & Pipes for a Saturday night family outing. Sitting at the opposite end of a long table from my daughter he boldly reached into his jacket, retrieved the shiny, borrowed figurine, held it up in the air and hollered to the other end of the table Hey missy! Look what I have!
My 2 year old stood straight up in her high chair, wildly waved an accusing finger and bellowed in her oh-so-deep nobody-knows-where-she-got-it baritone voice…
THAT’S MY FUCK!!!
It was enough to make the organist stop playing.
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Healing is going well but pain level is still too much for me. I just keep reminding myself that it’s temporary – and we can do anything short-term. I’ll have a progress report next week. Thank you for all the great advice, words of encouragement, nurturing energy and prayers – Oz
January 18, 2012 at 8:13 am
I remember the period when my daughter was learning about gender differences. She made one connection and with an astonished look said, “Mommy, we DRIVE a Vulva!”
My mother’s favorite story from a more innocent day, was that at age 4 in a motel, with my dad bringing some take-out to the room (an unheard-of luxury back then), I put my hands on my hips and exclaimed, “Well god-damnnnn…hamburgers!”
January 18, 2012 at 10:20 am
My daughter gave me and her granny the middle finger at two years of age. We still laugh about it…
She wouldn’t dare do it now.
January 18, 2012 at 11:05 am
My daughter had the frog/f-bomb problem too. I also remember thinking it was very important to teach children the proper names for body parts. Well, I did until one day at the story my daughter said, “My buh-gina itches.” I ducked quickly around the corner, but she yelled even louder in case someone hadn’t heard her the first time, “MY BUH-GINA ITCHES!!” Oy!
January 19, 2012 at 12:29 am
My ex cussed like a trooper – constantly. One day I was walking down the hall & my two year old son ran to me & held his arms up. I bent over to reach for him & he tenderly looked in my eyes, stroked my cheek & lovingly said “Dod Damned dirty som of a bitch” in the sweetest voice imaginable. That set off a period lasting several months where I couldn’t take him out in public at all.
Kids are wonderful aren’t they? I filled their baby books with their funny sayings, & they still love to read them and laugh their heads off.
January 19, 2012 at 11:50 am
I was teaching my son correct names for body parts when he was just learning to talk, also. He was probably around 2 years old when we were in the local Target store and he pointed to an innocent male bystander and yelled at the top of his lungs “that guy has a penis!” We then had to have a talk about not pointing and not yelling things about people in stores. UGH!!
January 19, 2012 at 6:18 pm
When my grandchildren were 2 and 3, they had picked up “shit” and “fuck” from who knows where and would use the words frequently. I told them that those were big people words and that “it was the rule that little kids couldn’t say those words until they were 10 years old” thinking that by age 10, it could be handled differently. They listened carefully, then with smiles and slobbery kisses, I got promises of “okay Granny” and they quit using the words. Next time we were at the grocery store, a kindly elderly couple stopped to comment on how cute they were. When they ask the kids how old they were, the 2 year old said “I’m TWO and he’s THREE. We can’t say shit or fuck until we’re 10!” Shortly after that, the 2 year old was telling a friend of mine about her imaginary friend, Shelly. He asked her “how old is Shelly?” She had never thought of Shelly’s age before, frowned for just a second or two then said “She’s 10, she can say shit”.