I try to watch my language in front of the kids, and I’m getting better at avoiding most of those taboo words… except for sometimes. Sometimes things slip out that shouldn’t and while Ivy never was much interested in any of the slip-ups Clara has an uncanny ear for them. While this is, of course, never good I do maintain that there are situations in which those words are, if not appropriate, at least capable of giving some measure of relief and satisfaction to a bad situation.
For instance lets say you were working out, and that the baby was happily bouncing away her in doorway, bouncer, thingy for the entire time. When you finish up and go to release her from her jumpy prison you are all smiles because you are so happy that she was so happy while you actually got a chance to do something for your self  and then you see it – The Accident.  The Accident that came running down both legs and puddled on the floor.

“Oh fiddlesticks!”

Nope, that just doesn’t cut it for me in a situation like that. Nor does “Darn!” really convey the complete feeling of dismay that is appropriate when the discovery is made that at least part of the reason she was such a content baby was that she was learning how to finger paint – with the portion of The Accident that came up her back.  And when you discover that the rest of the reason she was so happy was because of the fun she was having  squishing and smearing of mess between her toes…

Well other words just might come out – hypothetically of course.

And hypothetically if an older child is near by you might just hear, “What is shit Mom? What is shit?”