The F Word

Ollie has said the F word. Frankly, since I curse like a sailor, I'm surprised it hasn't come up before. I don't curse around him, but I definitely slip up from time to time. I figure at 6 years and 11 months, that's a pretty sweet record. 

One night last week, Doug was getting a movie ready and I was in the kitchen cleaning up dishes. Ollie was in a fun mood and we were all looking forward to Spring Break starting the next day. He and Doug were joking around and all of a sudden we hear:

"What the fahhhhhhhhhhck?"

It was like in The Christmas Story, where everything is happening in slow motion and the kid doesn't realize he's saying it until it's halfway out of his mouth and all we he wants to do is push it back in but now there's nothing he can do about it.

I quietly laughed in the other room, composed myself and came out to the living room. I glanced at Doug who was so obviously holding in a laugh and we both said, "Ollie! What did you just say?"

Ollie: "Nothing! Nothing! I didn't say that!"

Me: "Yes, Ollie, you did say that. We both heard it."

Ollie: "No I didn't! I didn't say it!"

Doug: "We all know you said it, and that you know what the word is."

While Ollie was screaming, maintaining that he didn't say "it," all I could think was, actually, he hadn't said the real word. He had said "fock" instead of  "fuck", and either he was trying to get out of trouble by using the old vowel rule, or maybe he actually did think that "fock" was the right word.



TANGENT: Last summer, when I was going through books for our garage sale, Ollie found our copy of "Go the F*ck To Sleep," by Adam Mansbach. He read the title out loud to me, but because the "u" is strategically covered by a moon, he said, "Mama, what is Go The Fock To Sleep?" I told him it was his daddy's book and that I'd take it and that was the end of it.

UNTIL NOW.

Anyway, without consulting my husband, I told Ollie that it was a bad word, that we don't say that word and that he wasn't going to get the movie that he was looking forward to watching that night. After he left to go to his room (yelling the whole way), Doug told me that we could've thoughtfully acknowledged it, let him get it off his chest and then had a nice conversation about it, but I went the opposite way. So effing sue me.

Doug talked to him a little bit in his room and then asked me to come in. I went into Ollie's room and noticed that on his white board he had written a whole slew of negative things about himself, like "Ollie is bad." "Ollie doesn't belong in this family." "Ollie is stupid." and "Boo Ollie." (He's so EXTRA). I sat down with him and we went over why the F word is a bad word and if he knew any other bad words (when I asked if he knew what the S word was, he replied, "Stupid." - so I think we're not so far down the path to prison). Then we went over to his white board and talked about what he had written and why. We talked about how no one is perfect and that everyone makes mistakes. Ollie and I went over and amended each one.

Me: "This one says, 'Ollie's dumb.' But you're not dumb just for saying a bad word, are you?"
Ollie: "No, I'm not."
Me: "Then what should it say?"
Ollie: "Ollie's smart!"
Me: "That's right! So erase that silly word, 'dumb,' and write in 'smart!'"

So now Ollie has a white board filled with affirmations in his room.

I cuddled Ollie in my lap and as we were winding down the conversation, I said, "Okay, Ollie. I'm going to give you one chance to say the word as loud and long as you want. But this means that this is the last time you're going to be able to say it. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Mama."

"Okay. Go for it."

"FFFFFFFFUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHCCCCCKKKKK!"

"Good. Do you feel better?"

"Yeah."

"Good."

"Mama?"

"Yeah, Ollie?"

"Thanks for letting me say fuck."

...

Oh, fock.