This connection, this understanding, this appreciation for life-change in a way that no other human could fathom, blurs the lines of friendship and sisterhood. It brings together human beings at their lowest lows and highest highs, sometimes all in the same day. This magical force field wraps around us and floats with us as we navigate scary, joyous, never-before-traveled roads with our children. Most importantly, it is an avenue for sharing in the honor of being mothers to these amazing humans. It is in this spirit that I share today about my irresponsible swearing.
But first, some housekeeping.
I’m Beka – always laughing, never wearing socks and lover of Skittles. I’m married to my high school sweetheart and together we adopted two sons: G is 5 years old and was born in Russia, T is 4 years old and was born in China. The boys are nine months apart so for the first 3 months of 2014, there were two 4-year-old boys in my house. I’ll pause a moment while you handle that nervous twitch.
Back to the irresponsible swearing.
My mother never said a swear word until I was an adult. If she got cut off in traffic she would exclaim sweetly “oh you turkey.” My father dropped a few big ones now and then but usually in the garage where he thought no one heard. It only makes sense that I, daughter of the clean-mouthed people, turned into a swearer rivaling truck drivers, stand-up comedians and sailors on weekend leave.
For my first soap-in-the-mouth experience I was 6 years old and had been caught playing the hand clapping game “Miss Merry Mack.” For those of you not enjoying girlhood during the early 80s, it went something like this:
Miss Merry Mack, Mack, Mack
All dressed in black, black, black
With silver buttons, buttons, buttons
All down her back, back, back.
It continued this way for several verses, the words of which I no longer remember. But the one that had me biting down on the Dove bar was totally innocent. It only alluded to the word a-s-s with a well-placed pause, no actual swearing occurred. Before I knew what was happening I was upstairs in the bathroom, standing next to a raging woman who vaguely resembled the mother ship. Enter chomp, scrape, chomp, gag, and 2 hours of brushing.
Try as I might I never feel sufficiently finished with an annoying situation unless I use a swear word. Please keep in mind I do not drop swears in public or around other people’s children, but mostly to myself when I stub my toe on the closet door (yesterday morning) or when I ferociously unlock my car but it’s not actually my car (last week).
When G was about 3 ½ years old I shouted “what the hell!” from the living room while watching a tennis match with a horrible referee. From the kitchen table he whipped his head around, peanut butter smeared on his face, locked eyes with me and replied “what the hell is right!” Our house shook a little bit and I knew both my deceased grandmothers were pissed.
From then on it was an impossible feat to 1) stop him from using what the hell is right everywhere we went and 2) for me to stop swearing. I just cannot let it go. I don’t smoke and I rarely drink so swearing is my only addiction. I. Need. To. Swear.
As G matured and fine-tuned the use of what the hell he got tired of it. We also had many talks about the appropriate use of these words. Now he only uses them at home, you know, to teach his brother and complain about taking a nap. What the hell has turned into what the gussies because gussies is not a swear word, it can be used anywhere and he knows he is smarter than I am. No one in our family but G knows what a gussie really is.
G’s post-placement adoption reports for Russia are all complete, but we are still in the very early stages of T’s post-placement reports for China. Last week our social worker and case manager came over to visit for his six-month report. We live in an access-controlled condo building so when we saw the ladies parking on the street my husband took the elevator down to let them in.
As the elevator bell dinged down the hall, signaling everyone was almost here, I reminded the boys to make sure and be polite to our friends. G nodded and agreed. T smiled, ear to ear, that smile of a child planning something, and blurted out...hang on...you know it’s coming...WHAT THE GUSSIES!
I’m thinking t-shirts.
Thanks, Beka!!! I laughed until I spit coke through my nose when I first read this, because I was trying to keep my language gentle for my post on her blog. I open up the email and found a post on cussing. Oh the irony!
Here is a link to The Nerd Can so you can follow along: http://www.thenerdcan.com/adoption-besties-charlie-the-unicorn-and-lady-parts-a-guest-post-by-jill/
If you like my blog, hop on over to Facebook and show me some "like" at:
0 comments:
Post a Comment