Dammit

My recent post on "Oh Sheet!" reminded me that I did once have a parental issue with a child cussing.  When C2 was 2 years and 3 months we were preparing for a trip to Lake Michigan.  Nona had come to visit and we were headed to the Lake for a full week of fun.  On the night before we left, Nona and I both overheard C2 murmur a word that was eerily close to the word Dammit, and he was using it while he was angry.  I found that very interesting, as I know that IIIIIIIII didn't use this word in front of him.  And I know that Brad SHOULDN'T have either.  Is that the word he said??? Maybe he said something else?!?  I thought that I would monitor him and see if that is indeed what he was saying.  It took several days, but when we got back home from vacation he said it again.  This time it was at the dinner table and it was when he was angry because we didn't give him something that he wanted - he used it in the right context and EVEN pounded his fist!!!  However, I was STILL in shock that this was the word he was saying, so I waited one more time.  Just a couple of days later he was building with blocks and his tower fell over.  He pounded his fist on the floor and out of anger shouted, "Dammit!".  This INDEED was the word he was saying.  He WAS guilty of cursing, and at such a young age...  He was the child that had to be evaluated for speech therapy because of a delay in language development.  And of the 27 words that he knew, Dammit was one of them!

I confronted him by saying, "Now C2... that is not a very nice word and we can't use that word anymore.  If you use that word you will have to go to Time Out."

He responded by saying, "No, No, No, Moma!  I HAVE to say Dammit!"

This was C2 at Lake Michigan.  

And this was also C2 at Lake Michigan.  He was being pulled in the wagon back to the house from the beach.  And it dumped.  He didn't even take a break from his CapriSun and just kept right on sucking.  Do you think he was thinking "Dammit"???

OH SHEET!

At this current stage of my life, hearing the word "sheet" is just as bad of a curse word as "sh!t".  There are 2 reasons for this.

One, we have a man-baby weighing in at a whopping 42 pounds at the young age of 2.  He is off the charts for his weight and at 99% for his height.  He is a beast!  And, what do 2 year olds of that size wear???  Size 4T clothes of course.  Do you think any diaper company makes diapers big enough to hold all the urine that comes out of a 4 year old's bladder??? No!  No they don't!  Even with the recent introduction of Size 7 diapers to the market, these diapers are not made to fit the body of a 2.5 year old man-baby. Soooo.... we currently wake up to C3 having wet sheets.  Weekly.  Bi-weekly.  Probably Tri-weekly is more like it.
And here's the deal people, I don't have the time or energy to be cleaning the bedding 3 times a week.  There is a reason that my kids wear "nap clothes" when they lay back down in the afternoons and there is a reason that they get clean jammies every night.  It keeps their beds clean and reduces the amount of work that I have to do.  Well, that and it helps with my Type A - keep everything clean -minor case of germophobia- personality disorder.  We have tried a handful of fixes, and it all boils down to the fact that our man-baby has a bladder the size of a 4 year old and the only true fix is going to be potty training.  Wish. Me. Luck!

The second large reason that "sheet" is such a bad word has to do with C2.  One night I went to put him to bed and noticed that his bottom sheet was terribly gritty.  Like it had sand all in it.  Hmmm... that was interesting.  ESPECIALLY since my kids have "nap clothes" and all.  I know he LOVES to play in the sandbox at school, so, maybe, just maybe, he got sand in his socks and he laid down to bed for nap and that's how the sand got into his bed.  Well, that night it was already late, so I just pulled the top sheet over and had him sleep on it for the night.  The next day I changed the sheets.  That night I went to put him to bed and his sheets were sandy, AGAIN!  Now.... hmmm... he didn't have school that day. AND I had changed the sheets just earlier that afternoon so there wasn't a huge time period for contamination.  It sounds like we have a san-demic on our hands (see what I did there?).   A few nights passed.  I didn't notice the recurrence of sand.  I was putting him to bed one night and he didn't have his socks on yet.  I grabbed a pair of fresh socks out of his drawer, carried them over to his bad and unrolled them to stick them on his feet.  WHEN I UNROLLED THE SOCKS, SAND FLEW OUT!  EVERYWHERE!!!  Ah Ha!  I solved this mystery.  Although, it is troublesome to me that "clean" socks can still be filled with sand, I at least knew where all the sand was coming from.  We do have a new ritual when he comes home from school.  He dumps his shoes on the door mat, removes his socks there too, heads to the bathroom to wash his hands AND feet.  It's not perfect, but it's resolution and I am finding less sand in his bed!  Which means you won't be hearing me say, "Oh Sheet!" so often.