@$%&!

During my Former Life, I worked in various elementary school settings, and was surrounded by children all day. In the educational environment, one automatically became accustomed to using curse-and-vulgarity-free language. It became second nature to let fly with "sugar!" or "drat!" or in particularly intense emotional situations, "doggone it!" Little did I know at the time that it was good training for having my own kids. Even though my husband and I don't use those words at home, I know my kids hear them out in the big, bad world. In fact, the 3rd grader--upright and honest citizen that he is--will occasionally report on what he knows. For instance, one night at dinner (Wholesome Family Meal, right?), he matter-of-factly stated, "I know what the f-word is, and the s-word too." I choked down my bite of pasta and went into immediate damage-control mode: "You know not to USE them, right?" "Oh, no, Mommy," he earnestly agreed. Meanwhile the 5-year old was bouncing up and down in his seat, waving his hand like he wanted to be called on, asking, "what's the s-word?" Maybe I should have taken another moment to think it through and plan my response better, knowing my immature audience...but instead I plowed ahead and answered, "It's just another word for 'poop', honey". Exactly one second of silence, then WAAHHHH HAAAAA HAAAAA!!! POOP!!!! IT MEANS POOP! !! HAAAAAA HAAAA!!! Sigh. I don't think he still has any idea what the actual word is, but the moral of the story is: in Boy Language, you can never have too many words for 'poop'.