Since I’m catching up on stories about Blythe, I’ll share another one from when she was four. It was right around Halloween, and we were walking along the mall’s main corridor, (right in front of the store “Children’s Place”), and not uncommonly, Blythe tripped and fell. She picked herself up, and as she was dusting herself off, she said in a disgusted voice, “god damn it.”
I freaked a bit—after all, that was MY precious 4 year old, cussing like a sailor! On top of that, she was attending a Catholic Preschool, and I had a flash of her saying that in front of teachers, nuns, a priest, you fill in the blank, go ahead- have some fun! It’s not YOUR kid! (And I will admit, it caught me so off guard that if it were someone else’s child, I would have laughed.)
So, I snapped to, and said, “Blythe (I used her full name including middle name, for effect) –What did you just say?” She looked up at me sheepishly and said in a whisper, “goddamnit”. I explained to her that those were very naughty words and that she was not to say them all in a row EVER again. I think I scared her a bit, but she did get the message that it was not OK to say that.
Flash forward, the same year at another mall….this time it was right before Christmas. We were walking out of a large sporting goods store, and she was trying to open the door. She was struggling because it was an especially heavy door. She was grunting and pushing on the door, and she said in the same disgusted voice “God…” –I interrupted her with a pre-emptive warning of, “BLYTHE.” She looked up with those same sheepish eyes, and finished her sentence with, “is in my heart.” “Nice save,” I told her, “but we are still going home.”
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