Ah, kids!  They are like little sponges, listening to every word you say and watching your every move.  Heck, like a sponge, they can dribble out little bits of knowledge that you’ve helped them soak up.  Of course, one would hope that what they actually hear and spew back into the world at large is something worth remembering

Our youngest SOC (Servant of Chaos) is 3 years old.  She’s a very intelligent child (yes, I’m biased, but as a person who works with young kids periodically, believe me, she’s bright!), who listens to everything that we say.  And she will repeat them.  Verbally.

Earlier in the week, she was helping her sisters find CDs and their cases so everything could be put away.  She was going up and down the stairs, usually muttering to herself.  I wasn’t particularly paying attention to what she was saying.  My husband passed her on the stairs, and finally listened to her murmurings.

“Gotta take cawe of dis cwap.” Translation: I have a need to take care of this crap.

We should have talked to her then.  Instead, we were to busy holding our sides as we laughed.

Yesterday, she was talking to us again:

“Daddy, what de hell is dat?” Translation:  Father, dear, what the hell is that unsightly mess?

That was the question she posed to my husband yesterday as he was trying to clean up a particularly nasty clog in the hose of the vacuum cleaner (I thought vacuums were supposed to be able to suck up anything.  Who know that wads of tape could get stuck in the hoses?).  He didn’t hear her the first few times, but our oldest SOC did.  She turned a lovely shade of purple, trying to contain her mirth, for she knew from her own past behavior experimenting with these words, what is to follow.  Finally, after her sixth repetition of the sentence, my husband understood her.

“Sweetie, that’s a word for grown-ups to use.  Not children.”

“How come?”

“Um, it just is.”

Later, as my husband and I were headed for bed, we were still chuckling over our youngest’s colorful vocabulary.  I laughingly mentioned that each of our children has managed to say a 4-lettered word at about this same age.  He looked at me and said this:

At least they are using the curse words correctly!