Several times now my son Snags, who is 5, has uttered a word that sounded suspiciously four-letterish in a curse word sounding sort of way.
A few weeks ago my husband and I thought he might have said “shit” and we questioned him on it. Or should I say, we held what could best be described as an inquisition. “WHAT DID YOU SAY?!” My husband nearly roared.
“Nothing!” Snags responded.
“Yes you did. You said something. Now tell me, what did you say?”
“Nothing!” Snags lied, a smile beginning to spread on his face. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Yes you did,” my husband insisted. “I HEARD you say something. Now tell me, what was it that you said?”
“Chip!” Snags responded. “I said Chip. Like Chip! Where are you?”
Now the thing is, Snags MAY have been telling the truth. Because at the time he uttered what he claims was “Chip!” but what we think was actually “Shit!” he was playing on the floor with a Beauty and the Beast playset, and “Chip” the broken teacup character, is a part of that playset. And he’s really, really tiny too. About the size of a toddler’s pinky nail. So Snags, he claimed he had lost Chip, and was simply calling his name to find him. Because tiny toys will answer you if you call them, right?
And then Snags added, “I didn’t say a naughty word!” Only it came out like “I didn’t say a NAWTEE wurd.
But you see, we never suggested he’d said a NAWTEE wurd.
What’s that saying? “The lady doth protest too much”? Well, methinks the kid was lying. Probably. Maybe. But… I’m not sure.
Then tonight, as he was climbing the stairs from the basement to the kitchen Snags uttered something else.
When questioned on it, he claimed he said “Buck!”
My husband though, wasn’t convinced. He questioned Snags over and over:
“I said BUCK!” Snags kept insisting.
“That’s not what it sounded like,” said my husband. So then he questioned ME. Only I was typing on the computer (like what else is new) and I wasn’t really paying attention to what Snags had said.
“What does “Buck!” mean?” My husband asked Snags.
“It means a dollar,” Snags replied.
My husband thought about this for a few moments and said, to me: “Well, I don’t even think he knows that OTHER word, does he?”
To which Snags retorted, “You’re right! I don’t know that other word.”
Later, I called Snags over to me and whispered, “What did you say earlier when you were going up the stairs?”
And he looked at me with puppy dog eyes and said, “I didn’t say the dirty word dad thought I said!”
“What dirty word did he think you said?” I asked.
He paused. “I don’t know!” he said.
So I asked, “Well, what dirty word do you think he thought you said?”
And still, Snags said, “I don’t know!”
So I’m left here thinking either this kid really is innocent and hasn’t gone off spouting dirty “wurds” or he’s a champ at covering for himself!
Running With Books 