Trial and Error

I'm constantly telling my friends and relatives who are new parents: Parenting is all about trial and error. Whether you're testing bottles or feeding schedules or potty training strategies, you try something and if it doesn't work you try something else.

I had one of those defining parenting moments last night. My 4-year-old son said, "'Holy smokes' isn't a bad word, but 'Oh, shit' is." True words indeed. But what was my response? I laughed. Heartily. And so did my husband, by the way.

In retrospect, this probably would've been an opportune time to explain that it's never OK for him to say, "Oh, shit," no matter the context. But, it really was funny, the way he said it. And, he clearly understood that "shit" was a bad word.

My hope is that Miss Tracy, or whoever it was at school that explained this fact to him, taught him this lesson, not because he used the s-word, but because someone else did. I won't lie and say that I don't swear around my son, because sometimes the s-word does slip out, but I try to keep the cussing to a minimum in his presence.

The parenting lesson in this is that sometimes you get it right, sometimes you get it wrong and sometimes it's just so effing funny that you don't care (but you vow to keep a straight face next time).