So here’s the thing. I swear. Like a motherfucker. Pretty much could make a sailor blush what with my f-bombs and whatnots.

I loves me an Anglo-Saxon curse word and think that fuck is like the little black dress of language: always appropriate, goes with everything, accessorizes nicely.

Long ago, waaaay before Go the Fuck to Sleep, on those days with babies when I was pretty much light years beyond the end of my rope, those days where you’re so fried you can’t really remember what it felt like to be an adult in conversation with other adults, what it felt like to have an actual shower of more than 2 minutes, to be free of spit-up and burp cloths and back-aches, gut-aches, shoulder-aches, wrist-aches–on those days, I had a particular lullaby I used to sing.

To whichever baby had sent me so close to the edge I could look over and see the abyss, I would sing, in the softest, sweetest, gentlest voice you can imagine, something along the lines of “you’ve ruined my life, I can’t do this any longer, fucking shit, what am I going to do, I am so tired, holy fucking shit what am I going to do please just stop crying for one goddamn hour…”

Okay – I wasn’t suicidal or PPD or infanticidal – I was just a standard-issue exhausted new mom. And I had a lot of love and support and everyone survived, so it’s okay.

I offer this story only to explain that me and swearing, we’re pretty much besties.

Here’s the thing, though. My babies are now old enough to hear my foul mouth and parrot it back, not in a oh-isn’t-that-cute-a-toddler-saying-”shit,” but with full force and understanding of the words coming from their mouths. And hearing my children’s sweet voices lilt around foul language is upsetting, to say the least.

So I had to stop. At least in front of them.

I’ve swallowed hard and reserved my love of four-letter words for solely adult company. Now, in front of the kids, I say “fudge” when something drops on the floor and breaks, or “holy cats,” or sometimes, “crap.”  But “fudge” has become my default word, when children are present. I figure they might know what I’m wishing I could say, but at least I’m not saying it.

Husband, however, disagrees with me. He says that the boys know I am saying “fudge” instead of “fuck,” and so I’m not really disguising anything or fooling anyone. I say I’m not trying to “fool” them, I’m just trying to ride herd on my fouler impulses. Husband is unconvinced.  He’s wrong, the fudge head.

I’m not sure what the boys think – they don’t say “fudge,” but I have heard Liam mutter “holy cats” under his breath (and, truth be told, he’s become fond of English-isms: bloody this and bloody that, and then “wanker.” We asked him to explain what wanker meant, and he insisted he didn’t know – but his dimples and embarrassed grin said otherwise: he does know but is too abashed to explain).

So what do you think? I should stop saying “fudge” and say…”fooey?” or “rats?” or “christ on a stick?”

Okay, that latter is probably an ix-nay.

But seriously – even if the kids know what I want to say, isn’t it better that they hear me not say it than that I let that f-bomb fly?

And by f-bomb, of course, I mean exploding fudge balls.

photo source

Me: Depends on whether they have short hair or not, I guess.

Liam: What about long hair?

Me: Nah, because with long hair you can tuck it up, like I do.  My hair is currently in its standard knot of a ponytail looped back on itself. Tres fashionable.

Liam:  You should grow your hair really, really long.

Me: My hair gets sort of scraggly if it gets long.

Liam, excited: No, but if you grew it really long, like Katniss, that would be wonderful.  And then you could wear some exquisite clothes.

I look down at my cotton t-shirt and skirt, which is starting to pill because it’s been washed so frequently. Exquisite?

Liam: Yes, exquisite. And then you’d be one of those pretty moms.

Everyone’s a critic.

In the UAE, today, March 21, is Mother’s Day.  Somehow, google knows that:

It’s a pretty cute drawing, google-guys, I have to say.  But it’s not as good as this one:

My first Arabic Mother’s Day card.  Graciously, Liam translated for me because he knows I can’t read Arabic.

My habibi.

Then, one day, we were in the back of a taxi together, and whammo, there it was.

“Mommy, can I get a facebook page?”

Crap. No. Of course not. You’re not old enough. It’s a hideous time-sucker (which I know from experience, darling, let me tell you).  Plus there are wicked predatory types out there who would love to know where your innocent boyflesh can be found, or who would send you messages about “free offers” and “cool games,” and then all of a sudden I’d be in a Lifetime horror movie where my sweet boy drapes his room in black raincoats and spends all his time in desperate online chat rooms.

But I didn’t say that.

I said yes.

In fact, I set up his account for him, putting on every privacy setting I could find and warning him that I had the password to his account and would be checking it regularly for inappropriate content.  If he were to change his password without telling me, I warned, his computer privileges would be revoked altogether.

Husband said, you love facebook, so isn’t it a tad hypocritical of you not to want him to have an account?  I said, I love my glass of wine at dinner, too, but that doesn’t mean I think Liam should be swilling the sauvignon blanc yet. (Full disclosure: I used to have a wee facebook addiction problem but it’s better now. Now I have twitter. Facebook is just the gateway drug.)

Why did I say yes? I said yes because Liam said some of his “casual acquaintances” at his new school have Facebook and I want to encourage him to make friends there.  Maybe, I think to myself, he can use facebook to connect with these new kids while he maintains connections with friends from New York and the school he attended here last fall.

Of course, my plan could backfire, as parenting plans so often do. Maybe he’ll use facebook to cling ever more fiercely to the past or spend all his time online moaning about his terrible life at the new school—thus pissing off his FB friends who go there too.

In the meantime, I confess that I’ve been checking his page.  My findings? Pre-teens communicate primarily with three-letter capitalized acronyms (LOL OMG), exclamation points used in groups of ten, and emoticons. As near as I can tell there are very few actual words exchanged.  My son’s profile page indicates that his “religious views” are Christian, which is strange because to my knowledge, my son has no religious views. As recently as last Christmas he wasn’t even quite clear on the details of that whole birth-of-Christ thing. I suppose, though, that in this country, where religion is everywhere, he feels the need to define himself in the eyes of god and facebook (are they really separate entities?)

Nowhere on his page do I see any evidence of dating of any sort – not girls, not boys, nothing.

I’m sure he’s curious about dating, but he can’t be that curious yet, can he? I mean, he’s not old enough, and it wouldn’t be at all appropriate, right?  I’m sure I’ve got years before he’s ready to date.

Wait. Where have I heard that before?

update! for reasons that seem eminently appropriate, my post about lurking on my son’s facebook page won the yeahwrite #46 lurker’s favorite prize!  if you don’t know yeahwrite, you should be spending time there every week, either to read the funny, wise writing that gets posted there, and/or to post your own work. it’s a great place to read and be read.

What? You say you’d like to friend my son on FB? NO WAY BABY. But here’s a much better way to make friends: link up with yeah write, or at least, go read the writers on yeah write. They’re much more interesting than my son and most of them even speak in complete sentences, using a minimum of emoticons.  Click on through…then come back to vote for your three favorite writers.

Caleb: Simo’s dad gives money away for his job.

Me (thinking philanthropy, grants office, fairy godfather): Really? What does he do?

Caleb: He’s a lawyer.

I’m thinking Caleb has confused “give” with “take.”