Lessons Learned

It's no secret that parenthood will teach you more about yourself than you ever thought possible. A dear friend likened the small people that run around our houses as tiny, magnifying mirrors. Uh, yes.

Obviously, I'm not a perfect person.

(What, you're surprised? I live to make you understand that I too am equal among the commoners).

Anyway, I've always had a tendency to swear when angry. Or when I accidentally slam my foot in the car door. Not my favorite thing about myself, so I've worked on it.

So when I had kids, I realized I should probably work a wee bit harder on my efforts to stop. For awhile, they were too little to tell the difference between a four-letter word like "duck" and a four-letter word like... well, you get the picture.

But gradually, they got old enough to parrot and I realized that I had to work double time to make sure they weren't going to yell the word that rhymes with spit when they dropped a block of cheese out of the cart at the grocery store.

I got very good with the filter. Stub your pinky toe on the bedroom door? "Super Smash Brothers!" Spill half a bottle of olive oil out on the floor? "Ratatouille!" Shatter the casserole dish on the floor that happens to have your uncooked dinner in it? "AAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHH!!!!" followed by some hissed words that probably don't need repeating.

Hey, I told you I wasn't perfect.

Anyway, like most things, my kids picked up on my weird word exclamation habit. Yesterday, Lex was in the back of the car and was exasperated by something and said,

"Oh peanut BUTTER and JELLY!"

Atta girl. Atta Mommy too.