Not Just For Breakfast

In an effort to catch up on my blog posting before the year runs out on me I am going to attempt to barrage this with posts. I am looking to to do one a day for the rest of the year or a grand total of 4 whichever happens first... Since I am currently stuck in my house because of the contagious eye infection debacle of '09 I should have plenty of time to play catch up. And if I start messing up on spelling it is because my eyes crusted over and sealed themselves shut while I was typing and I am just not that great at typing without looking.

This post will revisit some thoughts from a past post. I don't know which one. I could link to it but than I would have to figure out how to link and time is of the essence. So, without any further hesitation I will bring you back to the world of Cheerios.

Cheerios serve a number of purposes to a toddler - one of which does not appear to be as use as a food source. Jack personally enjoys pouring them from one vessel to another. When he gets bored of simply switching their homes he finds joy in pouring them on the floor.

Once the Cheerios are neatly scattered around the living room Jack takes me by the hand and leads me to the vacuum and smiles as if to suggest that he knows I find no greater joy then to vacuum up Cheerios, and look at how convenient he has made this for me.

Of course I relent because there are Cheerios all over the floor and that's just asking for trouble because the last thing I need is to attract more toddlers to my house. For his part Jack grabs up his 'popper' push toy, drapes the vacuum cord around his neck (like mama) and rolls the popper over the pile which achieves three things: grounding them into the floor, scattering them out farther and blocking the real vacuum.

Now, I have also been privy to some information regarding another use for Cheerios. Apparently they come in handy during the course of potty-training little boys. Since we are still in the wee stages of potty-training we have yet to try this out.

My mother-in-law has fed me a number of stories and one of them she really enjoys has to do with Cheerios, my husband and what my future could hold if Jack follows too closely in his father's shadow.

Apparently my husband was a bit of a Cheerio hoarder in his youth. He would store them everywhere most likely in case he grew up and lived in a world where Cheerios were no longer available, probably a lot like The Matrix movies.

I guess the story ends up with Cheerios being discovered flowing from his Little People farm and some choice air vents around the house.

Fast-forward 28 years and I have found Jack depositing some of his stray Cheerios in a niche in the back of the vacuum. My only hope is he thinks he is helping them get into the vacuum and not squirreling them away for later.

Unfortunately Cheerios are my favorite breakfast cereal so there's no hope of them leaving the house. I have personally grown accustomed to keeping a very close eye on Jack while Cheerios are around. As for when my husband's in charge...well, let's just say the electronics should be very cautious.

This Post May Contain Strong Language

My little almost 2-year old boy has become quite the little chatterbox. We go on walks around the block and he identifies as much as he possibly can. He recognizes houses, trash cans, pumpkins, cats, dogs, planes, trees, people, cars and on and on.

I have taken it upon myself to teach him the difference between cars and trucks - mostly because I think there are some people around this town that will get offended when anyone, even a 2-year old, calls their truck a car.

So, every time we go past a truck and Jack says car I correct him. And then I cringe.

I've heard the stories of countless families whose toddlers voice unfortunate mispronunciations of words like truck and fork. While there are those who would take advantage of the situation I am pretty against children cussing... even if it is unintentional.

Don't get me wrong. I cuss. A lot. And I don't mind if other people cuss around me. Perhaps I am of the opinion that there is a proper way of cussing.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about this subject lately. I didn't start cussing until I was in 7th or 8th grade. No reason really but I do recall feeling icky when my friends or older brothers did.

When I was in Sunday school my teacher had a wonderful discussion about swearing and cussing. She was of the opinion that the words that many find offensive aren't really that bad if they're used in the right context. What I took from the discussion was that it was OK to use them in general because they were just words, but when you used them in anger then they became bad.

So does Shit by any other name sound more sweet? I am fairly good at turning it on or off, so when I knocked some clothes off the table the other day at a garage sale I was hosting I exclaimed, "Oh goodness," rather than "Shit" like I normally would have.

So technically goodness was shit, but a socially acceptable shit - but why? Fiddlesticks, shoot, frig, arse, dang, etc. are all ways to cuss without cussing. Why are the words offensive when they can easily be replaced with something else? For me it goes back to the feeling that is being conveyed.

Perhaps because of that one Sunday school class I remember, I rarely cuss to express anger. For me swear words are nothing more than my regular vocabulary only sassy! Or something. I know when I take a cue from Ghost Hunters and say 'What the frig?' my brain is saying something else.

Still, I am not encouraging little Jack to cuss and I control my sassy vocabulary around him. However, I dread the day he decides to point out a dump truck to someone or asks for a fork at a restaurant.