mydarlingdevils

Life is just one big bumpy road

So – it’s true…you have to watch everything you say around them.

At a point, every time J got mad, he would tell K to Shut out. “Shut out k” or he’d say “geeziz cries” when he was exasperated – his version of Jesus Christ. It was really hard for us not to crack up…but then he would do it even more, so we’d hold it in and tell him sternly that he shouldn’t say that. It was just about the cutest thing you ever heard though, it really was.

“J and K pick up your fucking toys now”.

That’s all it took – once it was out, there was no putting it back in. I looked at them, incensed and tired – I wanted to rewind about 12 seconds. They looked at me, hesitated. My wife was traveling and I had been with the boys alone for 3 days. I said “just pick up your toys right now or you get time out”. To their credit, they did.

I knew I shouldn’t have said it, shouldn’t have yelled, shouldn’t have sworn and they are so amazing, but they can both be such – well, not amazing. I was worried because kids are like little parrots – they repeat everything. The beauty is that they never repeat anything you want them to – I think it’s hardcoded into human DNA until we have kids of our own. To my relief – that was the end of it. J did not say the f word and I didn’t have to worry about my wife finding out. They cleaned, I gave them a bath and then I put them to bed.

A week later, we were in our car – we were taking a very usual trip over the freeway. The bumps in the road were bothering J, so he said: “excuse me daddy, you are ridiculous”
I smirked and asked “why baby?”

“Daddy, you are ridiculous, there are so many bumps”. For a toddler falling asleep in the back seat, being woken up by bumps is absolutely the worst thing that could ever happen. I mean, really.

“Ok baby, I will be more careful – now take a nap ok?”

After a few minutes – with no ability to control it, we drove over another small bump and again J goes: “Daddy, be careful, you are ridiculous”

“Sorry, I am trying but the road sometimes has bumps” – that seemed to be a good enough reason and he looked out the window and went back to minding his own business.

Inevitably we went over another large bump

“Daddy, you are ridiculous, fucking daddy”
“Fucking daddy, be careful”. It wasn’t so much just what he said, but how he said it. With all the right inflections – he sounded like he had spontaneously combusted into a truck driver.

My first reaction was to turn my face away – there was an uncontrollable laughter that was welling up inside me and letting him see that would surely invite more cursing. My wife WAS in shock and didn’t have the same need to push back laughter. J kept going.

“Fucking daddy – be careful ok?”
Then “fucking mommy, fucking mommy” and then he turned his sights on poor K who had been minding his own business.

“Fucking K” – “K, don’t look at me, fucking K”

I did what any sane man would do in my position – I told my wife he must have picked it up in Daycare or something, that unfortunately didn’t work.

That was how it went for the next few weeks – we had to warn guests and family that the f-bomb could be dropped at any minute and they were under no circumstance allowed to react in any way – put on a poker face we would tell them. You can caution people, but sometimes no amount of preparation is enough for the sound of a 3-year-old swearing – oh and no experience is sweeter than sitting in a restaurant, having your son drop a four letter cuss and having everyone stare at you like you are unfit parents. I guess that’s why they invented delivery.