Toddlers are interesting creatures.
They are very similar to monkeys and parrots and lemmings.
What they see, hear, or watch someone else do,
that they too shall do. Or say.
This issue has come up before... such as when, upon Theron's discovery of the Temper Tantrum, my husband used to tell him, "You are not dying. Calm down."
Now, when Theron throws a tantrum, he accompanies it with shrieks of
"DYING! DYYYYYIIIIINNNGGG!"
We just give thanks for understanding neighbors who have children of their own.
However, we have never had a problem with Theron swearing. I mean, we usually watch our language pretty well. We are missionaries, after all, and are held to certain standards of conduct.
But this week, I was talking with his babysitter. Evidently, as her nice little family was busy just minding their own business and being productive and behaving, my Sweet Toddler suddenly burst out with the endearing term, DUMB-A**!!
And not just once.
Over and over.
And over.
Because once is obviously not enough for such language.
Her husband was, understandably, somewhat taken aback by this turn of events, and probably not a little concerned about (a) my son's home environment, (b) his son's understanding of "ok words." (their son is a month younger than Theron).
Rachel, though, being the kind, understanding woman she is, decided to give us the benefit of the doubt. Wasn't that nice of her? Especially with her husband expressing concern and my toddler continuing to happily express himself with Less Than Desirable Words in the background.
My dear friend Rachel assured her husband that she did not think Theron's parents regularly would use the term he was so enthusiastically applying to all of his surroundings. She wasn't sure, but possibly they were misunderstanding what he was saying and surely they could find another explanation.
She then proceeded to try to figure out what, if anything, else Theron might be saying.
She finally realized that he was pointing to a character in a book while expressing his opinions....
A book on Thomas the Tank Engine.
She explained to her relieved husband that she believed Theron was, in actual fact, saying "THOMAS! THOMAS!", not... anything else.
I assured her, during our conversation, that we did not, in fact, regularly use such language at home, and that Theron was, in fact, saying "Thomas." He confirmed the fact by repeating loudly "THOMAS! THOMAS!" Since we were obviously discussing the annoying little tank engine, and he wanted to weigh in with his opinion. Sure enough, if you didn't know what he was saying, it did indeed sound like "dumb-a**"
On the positive side, now when he asks repeatedly over and over to watch "Thomas," which he does by just repeating "Thomas! Thomas! Thomas!" over and over like a scratched record, we now are infinitely amused rather than just extremely annoyed.
Because... well... we're immature.
And it's really funny.
