Oh Shi...!

It is a common fear that as a parent you’re going to say something inappropriate in front of your child and that they will immediately absorb what you said and repeat it. Probably at the worst time and most likely over and over again. You can try to teach them all kinds of educational and useful things, working with them constantly, and have zero success. But the one time you say the wrong thing, that’s when they’ll choose to suddenly have the ability to pick it up on the first try.

And that’s exactly what happened to CC. Something happened one day, as it does so many days, and he slipped and said, “Oh, sh!t.” And though Declan has been slow to progress with speaking actual words, that phrase was picked up on the first try and almost perfectly. So, later that day when Declan was in his play pen, he dropped something over the side onto the floor. He casually looked down at it, and he said, “Oh, shi...” (He struggled with the “t” sound, but the intent was clear.) And CC immediately knew that he’d screwed up. THIS was not what he wanted his son to take from all of the hours spent teaching him things. And THIS was not what he wanted Declan to say in front of his mother.

That night, CC and his wife tried out some new nighttime diapers to see if they’d be more absorbent than regular diapers. The next morning, they woke up to find the diaper completely dissolved into a gooey, gelatinous mess. Whatever substance they put in the diapers to be more absorbent had leaked out everywhere. They took Declan to the tub to try to clean off the sticky, amazingly resilient substance. CC got in the tub with him, and imagine his surprise when Declan looked around the tub; taking in the crap stuck to him, stuck to CC, stuck to everything really; and he said, “Oh, shi...” CC laughed and said, “Yep, pretty much, bud.”

On the same day that CC was relating this story to me, I was talking to my wife in the car on her way home. Right in the middle of our conversation, she starts screaming at some other driver on the road, “What’s your problem, @$$hole?!” When she had calmed down, I said, “You know the baby’s in the car, listening and absorbing every word you speak. You need to watch what you say.” And now, I’m imagining her getting pulled over by a police officer one day, and Troy turning around from the back and saying, “What’s your problem, @$$hole?!” The police officer asks my wife, “Did you teach him that?” “No sir, it was his father.”