Vocabulary

When Caitlin was about 18 months old, we started her in speech therapy.  She had been diagnosed with a speech delay (which, it turns out, was less about ability and more about willingness.  She’s been strong willed from the get-go).  She is completely fine now, of course (in fact, a little too fine if you ask her teacher, ahem).  However because of her issue, I found myself worrying about Hannah and Ben’s speech around 18 months as well.  With Matthew, though, it was different.  Whether it was his proximity in age to Caitlin, or an inherent need to communicate, by the age of five, the boy had mastered a pretty darn good set of words.  He was talking about “Cessna airplanes” and “Monster Trucks” by the time he was two.  I loved to hear him talk, and it was such a relief not to worry about his vocabulary.
Until now. 
This past weekend on our way to Elachee, I heard Matthew, in a sweet sing-song voice, chanting, “F---er! F---er! F----er!”.  I think it had been going on for a while before it registered for Matt and me…but when it did  Matt nearly drove off the road and we both exploded at Matthew:
“MATTHEW!  WHAT??!!  ARE!!  YOUSAYING!!??!!?!!!  WHY?  NO!! BAD!!  NO!!  WE DO NOT SAY THOSE UGLY UGLY WORDS!!  WHO/WHERE/WHEN DID YOU HEAR THAT WORD!??!!”
Poor Matthew, who had no idea what the hell was going on (I’m a grown up.  I can say that) looked so confused.  However he had picked up on the fact that perhaps he had done something wrong and was hunched down behind Caitlin waiting for the inevitable (but confusing) grounding from baseball.  (The poor child thought he had just made up a clever new word.)  Eventually we calmed down and explained the whole thing to him and expected that we had done the trick.  There would be no more potty words from him.
Not so much.
This afternoon he came home from school, and in the middle of grammar homework (how fitting) asked me if ‘B---h’ was a bad word.  (I’m starting to wonder if I’m getting played here.)  Apparently he had learned this little gem from a friend at school. 
Parent conferences are this week…I have a feeling I may be in for something special.  I’ll let you know. 

Labor Free Day

What a great weekend!!!  We got to look forward to a Saturday football game, (which admittedly could have gone better) and then a magical Sunday and Monday.  Magical because Matt’s parents offered to take ALL FOUR MONKEYS Sunday morning and keep them until Monday morning.  So Matt and I got 24 blessed hours kid free.  Don’t get me wrong…I love my babies…but our time to miss them is minimal.  And those 24 hours meant that Matt and I got to drive around in our carseat-unfriendly car, go run together right at naptime and then go out for dinner without worrying about being home at any certain time.  (of course we were home and ready for bed by 7:30, but we didn’t HAVE to be-).  We enjoyed every minute of it!!  And, when the kids came home it wasn’t a minute too soon.  I missed the little stinkers (the majority of Matt and my dinner conversation was about them). 

I hope my in laws know how very much we appreciate the time and effort that goes in to providing such a break for us…and as much as we enjoy it, it’s nice to know that the babies enjoy the time with Nana and Dee even more.