Monday, September 23, 2013

Parenting & Potty Words.


You know that you have reached another level in parenting when suddenly your daily conversations with your spouse, parents & friends feel like a spelling bee. 

We have recently had a rude awakening to how clued in Baby N is to adult conversations with her new found love for the phrase "damn it". Oh my, 20 months seems really young to start this sort of thing, but I suppose most kids (if not all) go through this stage of experimenting with strong language. Turns out this isn't the only word of this sort that she knows. During a recent conversation at lunch time we realized that she has been cataloging every bad word she has heard from every adult she knows for the past 3-4 months and has been keeping them in a mental file until she found the right way to use them. 

*Sigh*, it has been a humbling experience to say the least. I have felt like it is my responsibility to warn all my friends with small kids who want to come play about my daughters verbal experiments. In a community of little people, potty words are about as contagious as a case of chicken pox and sometimes equally as excruciating to deal with. 

I can't pretend that "I don't know where she got it from". Her dad and I aren't always super saintly in our expression of humor, frustration, etc. There have been many trips to the time out chair for the past few days... for her and for us too. (A side note of hilarity: Daddy slipped out a bad word & put himself in time out. Baby N saw this, started bawling, and said that she needed a time out too. She went and sat next to her dad the whole time. Sweet thing!)

So through lots of redirection (learning to say "dog gone it"), prayer and patience, we are slowly navigating our way through this experience. The thing that I think is neat is that I am changing with her, rather than standing back and forcing her to conform to my expectations. That is one amazing things about having kids & a family; we have the opportunity to "grow up" and be refined together. We mold each other by our responses to the experiences that we share, and the Spirit of God binds us together as we walk through life in faith. It's amazing that trials like this actually make me realize how much I really love being a mom. It's a precious gift that I wouldn't trade for anything.

The potty words, however, I could do without.


2 comments:

  1. Allisen, hi! I've been thinking about you lately and notice I haven't seen much on facebook from you and now I've found you through Google+ (which I JUST started using even though I've worked for Google for over 2 years now, haha). I LOVE that this was the first blog post of yours that I've read. So funny. Miss you!

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  2. Hey Corrie! I'm so glad that we connected this way! I have been off FB for a year now. Totally miss seeing you. I need to make sure I get your current e-mail so we can keep in touch that way too. Thanks for saying hi!

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