Watch What You Say Momma

I remember when Will was learning to talk. His first word was appropriately 'ball' as we constantly played ball with our puppy and the only toys the 10 month old liked were 'balls.'  He soon said 'Dada' changing the last syllable to '-o' within a week. All he said were those two words, and a barking sound that resembled his grandparent's beagle.  I remember telling Daddo, 'He's never going to say 'Momma.' But he assured me that one day he would eventually pick up more words and most likely 'Momma' would be one of them.
Sometimes rarely hardly ever One time Daddo was right. He did learn to say 'Momma.' So did his brother. Then his other brother. Nine years later {last year} his sister started it. Now it never stops. I hear 'Momma' 16837267 times a day. I think I hear it when I don't. I dream about it. I answer to other children saying it. Mom, momma, mom, mother, mommy, momma.... Daddo just laughs. He's never gonna say Momma he mocks. I get it. They of course were going to learn to say it. Just like they'll learn to say anything and everything they hear. A lesson I learned early on in my parenting.

Will was just over 1 year and still not saying a whole lot but picking up new words here and there. A friend of mine and I were sitting around one day just visiting {she was pregnant with her first and I still just had one baby so we were able to just 'sit around'} while he played in the floor with his toys. He was putting a toy on top of another toy trying to balance them when they fell.... We heard a quick 'Awe shit.' My friend and I looked wide-eyed toward baby Will. She looked directly at me with an uh ohhh look. Surely not I thought. To prove we really heard what we heard, my friend leaned over and tapped another little toy making it fall down. 'Awe shit.' My little guy said again. My friend giggled. 'Well I know exactly who he got that from.' She was right. She knew me. She knew that my one word that I said when I dropped something, stubbed my toe, hit my head or got annoyed while driving, was that word.{We ALL have our closet bad words.}

On that day, I was in utter disbelief that my baby who was just learning to say 'Momma' had already learned my bad word and was using it in correct context! I felt horrible. I thought what if he says it in public, around his grand parents, IN HIS SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS?! I was the super stressed out, overly worried first time parent.
But, I learned. And from that day on, I watched what I said. We started to make up kid terms for words, like hiney, Oh no!, and super don't like instead of hate. We became super strict on the word usage around our toddler-with-a-sponge-for-a-brain.

We did this for a long time. Even as our older two boys grew bigger, we didn't become lenient on our choice of words. So much, that the 10 year old, who was a cusser at just 1, still thinks shut up, butt, dang and even gosh are 'bad words.' Of course they used the name-calling toward each other like booty head, meanie and my favorite, poo poo face {and still got in trouble}. In our home, they never heard the words butt, hate, stupid, crap, shut up or any other hurtful and ugly terms. They've never heard me say a cuss word {since the incident 9 years ago}.

But for whatever reason, Daddo and I have let our guard down just a little bit with our daughter being in the 'learning vocabulary stage.' I have no idea why we would start now. Other than maybe we're just tired of the constant worrying about what we say. We're more stressed with more kids {remember how I used to sit and visit with my friend} and we're forgetting to send our adult words through the 'kid terms' filter. Now, while driving, my kids catch me saying hate, stupid, dang it and sometimes even idiot! 

Yesterday boy #3, still just 4.5 years old, was unhappy with my choices I gave for his inside activities while it was raining. He said 'That is annoying.' {I'm sure he meant boring but since I had to drive in Tyler earlier, he probably heard annoying more times than I care to think of, along with my other basketful of adult words to use in traffic}.  That is a big word for a little boy, right? I should be proud of how he tried to use it right? I'm not proud of the way he learned the word.

The real reason I initially wanted to sit down and jot this post was actually funny to us at first. A few weeks ago Cora, just now over the halfway mark between terribly 2 and dramatically 3, started asking me if I was nice. 'Momma you nice?' she'd ask. 'Yes, I'm nice,' I'd answer. Then she would follow up with a request like, 'I have a fruit snack?' or 'I watch a cartoon?' or my least proud new word my daughter has, 'I watch Netflix?' while pointing on my phone's app. All of these requests she knows are usually given the negative answer so she starts with the nice question as if to sugar coat what she knows is not allowed. When I said 'No,' she would quickly remind me, 'But you niiiiice.... you said you niiiiice.'
At first this was a cute little gesture that I kept telling myself to write down in her baby book.... which has less documentation than this blog, so I guess that's okay for the reason I started this cyber journal about my family in the first place. But a few days of this approach not getting what she desired, she started responding to my 'No' answers. 'You mean,' she told me. The first time she said this was on New Years day while we were visiting family for lunch and she wanted a third brownie. I casually took my manipulative cute little 2 year old to another room down the hallway and explained to her that Momma is not mean, but Momma loves her and knows what is best for her. I knew most of this went right over her head as she batted her eyes and said 'yes ma'am' before I was even finished and leaned in for the lecture-ending kiss. I continued, with less wordage, 'Momma is nice, I love you and you do not need another brownie.'
She obviously got the words mean and nice from hearing me tell her or one of her brothers to be nice or don't be mean...to which she'd apply to whatever was happening at the moment {stolen toy, sharing, hitting or hugs}. But this little toot tried to take a stab at my emotions just to get what she wanted... so glad she is my fourth child during my well-worn parenting years.

What hurt me the most.... even more than the 'awe shit' quote I heard almost a decade earlier and four kids before... was what she said to me just this weekend.
We were at a birthday party.... kids, parents, and bounce houses all around and she asked me for something, I can't now remember. The request was quickly overshadowed by her response to my 'No' answer. She arched her back, leaned over on a chair, stomped her foot and said, 'You stupid.'
Insert Evil Mom Voice: 'WHAT DID YOU SAY?'
'Momma you stupid,' she again stupidly replied.
With no room or hallway to take her to, I leaned down, wrapped my loving hand around her arm, touched my nose to her's and told her she was NEVER to talk that way to anyone. I told her she was not to say that word, that it was mean {there's that word again} and it made Momma sad.
She said, 'Otay Momma, I sorry,' leaning in for that lecture-ending kiss again.
But what could I do? She heard all of these words from me, her momma. It really made me sad. It made me sad to think she may say it to another little kid. It made me sad that she knew these hurtful words and knew how to use them.
We constantly tell our toddlers to 'use your words' but are the words they're really hearing and learning, the ones we want them to use?

Ten years into parenting, I'm still having to remember my toddler filter. For at least another few years, almost until I'm 4-0 myself.... I'll be using terms like boo boo, tee-tee, potty, nigh-nigh time and hiney.  
And if you cut me off in the turning lane, I'll probably yell Poo poo face real loud. But name-calling isn't nice.
Watch what you say Momma.