Monday, May 17, 2010

What The.....


The two year old has been swearing. Like a sailor.
It's not intentional of course but I'm not sure that matters when you are in the supermarket or even better - the library.

She has had what I like to call a language explosion.
At last count she regaled us with an eight word sentence.
(None of which were swear words.)
That's genius if you're two!
The fact that only I might understand five of them is something I'm going to ignore.

The problem has come with the word - truck.
She can't quite manage the tr sound so she has substituted it.
You all know where this is going....

Maybe it would not be a big problem if she didn't see trucks EVERY where we go and have a burning desire to point at them and scream out their name.
She also does this for school buses and bikes but they don't present the same difficulties.

It's always entertaining to be judged by some complete stranger because your child is jumping up and down screaming the
F-word. Only other parents seem to get what she is doing but even they look at me with disdain - especially if they have an older child with them.
I get it.
It's not cool.

What can I do about it?

We tried washing her mouth out with soap - she didn't seem to mind.
I have told her she is mispronouncing the word and should try harder or stop being excited at the site of trucks until she can roll that tr sound off her tongue. She looked at me oddly.
I have warned her that she will not be getting any more ice-cream unless she stops.
She said, "ICE CREAM! ICE CREAM!"

I don't think she's taking me seriously.

I have resorted to saying very loudly - "Oh yes darling TRuck!"
after each expletive has rolled of her sweet and cute two your old tongue - in the vain hope that old people will stop looking at me as if I have sat down with the specific intention of teaching my child to swear.

I should mention that the glee on the seven year olds face each time this word is uttered by her sister is immeasurable.
She has reached the age where the knowledge of naughty words is the trump card on the playground.
She knows this is the naughty word to top all naughty words (OK there is at least one more that's worse but we haven't discovered it yet) and now she can tell her friends that her baby sister said it. Priceless.

I'm thinking of getting her a t-shirt that says "She means TRuck." but I think I may just draw attention to the problem.
As with all things parent related this too shall pass so I'll just wait it out - red faced and flustered.

6 comments:

  1. You wrote this specifically to give me my daily chuckle, right?

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  2. love the t-shirt idea! although i'm sure you'll catch some flack for putting something evocative on your child's clothing.

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  3. What can you do? She'll learn to pronounce it eventually. Until then, yes, I'd be red faced, too! :-)
    And I think the shirt idea is cute, too!

    ***Ally

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  4. haha, cute!

    Maybe try teach her to say "tuck"? I bet you she can muster a "t" sound by itself. I know it's wrong, but compare it to the alternative!

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  5. As previously posted on my Facebook account a couple of months back..."Practicing with my 2-1/2 year old on how to say her full name (first and last). Unfortunately, she tends to omit the "x" sound in "Fox", replacing it with a "k" sound instead. Might have to hold off on this for a couple of months. ;-)"
    But is sounds sooo cute!

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