Oh Shirt!

For the past three months, I have been living in a semi state of fear…of my two-year old.

Here’s the long and short of it…

One day while Georgia Peach (GP) was playing she accidentally knocked over her tower of Lego’s and I thought I heard her say something when they fell.  I brushed it off and kept it moving. A few days past and while drinking her water GP spilled some on the floor and as clear as day…I heard what I thought I heard her say the other day.

“Oh, sh*&!!”

What???  No no no no no no no! The room started spinning! I freaked out and said to GP, “DON’T SAY THAT!!”.

I started to panic.

She started to cry. 😦

I immediately start apologizing, hugging, and consoling my sweet girl. I knew she heard someone say it and I was determined to get to the bottom of who had turned my Southern Belle into a two-year old trucker.  I knew it wasn’t her fault.

The reality of the situation started to settle into my brain. Did we just become THOSE parents? You know what I’m talking about.  We have all witnessed a little one saying something a tad bit naughty and perhaps thinking (I’m just saying, I have) ‘What is that kid’s parents teaching him/her? Terrible.’  Now, the problem is in my house.  I can hear our neighbors now, “Georgia Peach has always been such a sweet girl.  We can’t believe it. Things like this never happen in our neighborhood…” 😉

To add to my angst one tiny additional detail…she was scheduled to start preschool at a Christian school in a few weeks.  She is going to get kicked out the first week! We will be on the local news.

I started with the Coach.  After I explained to him what happened, he told me that I probably heard her incorrectly and she was likely saying, ‘shirt’. After all she is only two and still working on speaking to us fluently in English (we are pretty sure her current language is a mix between French and Chinese). Nope. I know what I heard and it wasn’t ‘shirt’. Besides, she used it in the right context. Who says, “Oh, shirt!”?

At this point,  I am living in fear.  I’m worried that something will trigger the phrase and I will be outed as a terrible Mommy.

A few days past and I dropped something on the floor and without thinking, I said, “Oh sh*&!”.

Nooooooo. Aww man, it was me! I am the bad influence on my precious angel.  I like how I didn’t think to consider myself as the culprit in this entire situation.  Seriously, I’m an idiot.

I tried a number of ways to correct the problem when finally the Coach came up with a solution that stuck.  Anytime we heard her say well you know, we corrected her and replaced it with…

‘Oh, shu shu!’

It worked!  For us both. 😉 And just in time to start preschool.

Now, even though we have moved past it, I still have “Mommy Shame” about the entire situation.   I am just relieved GP only shared her new words with us. Whew!