It's STUPID!!

Little Skye has an impish smile. He was born with it and a "just dare me" look in his eyes. Quite honestly it's what I love about him. The resemblance.

Yesterday, Skye said "Mom, I know a naughty word that starts with an s".

The impish-smile extends from ear to ear. Just-dare-me eyes feed on the sudden alertness in my eyes as he's about to use the "s word" -- the one he used in kindergarten the very first week after correcting himself for letting the "f word" slip out. Eventually he recovered like a gymnast who wobbled a bit before sticking her landing, censoring himself down from "freakin'- shit-shoot-darn! Finally he steadied himself on "crud!" while looking around to see if the judges noticed his indiscretions. The teacher had. Some construction paper craft he was working on apparently was giving him trouble. Unfortunately he forgot he was in a crowded room, the way Mommy sometimes forgets little ears are listening when she drops something on her foot. EXPLICATIIIVE!!!! And then it's too late. It's out there. Magnetically drawn to the tape recorder in his mind that's stuck on "play and record".

His kindergarten teacher recounted this charming story for me with a knit brow the first week of school. I scanned the classroom in disbelief as if searching to see where he had learned such language. To my relief she told a similar story about her nephew, Cole, on his first week of kindergarten as well. Skye and Cole went to preschool together.

As the memory of his teacher recounting this charming story flashes into my frontal lobe along with my ridiculous attempt to scan the classroom aghast at what I'd just heard, I cringed when he said he knows a naughty word that starts with "s." I know he knows it. I want him to forget it.

"Want to hear me say it?" he says, anticipating my predictable response.
"NO!"
Too late. There was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't stop him. When more white than blue shines in my eyes, it sends him into Toying with Mommy Heaven.
"It rhymes with....." I'm imagining "it" words he's going to say as he eventually works his way to the cheese at the end of the string. To my great relief he said "Cupid!"

Shwew! "Get it? Stupid!!" I had to follow through with an overreaction: "We're not allowed to say that word!" rather than with relief that it was "the other 's' word" or clever boy would quickly realize he could take the whites in my eyes one degree wider, endlessly tease me with words that rhyme with "it" without ever coming to "shhhhhhh!".