I always knew this day would come.





What day?





The day that my sweet Layla says something awful to me... and I cringe... because I know she's simply repeating something she heard "Mommy" say.

My little "Angel"

Sigh...



I'm not even someone who swears a lot! And since Layla was old enough to understand me (and start repeating my words) I've certainly made an effort to clean up the few slanderous words or phrases that I've been know to use from time to time.



But words like "stupid" and "kill" are somehow still a normal part of my vocabulary.



Sigh... (yes... I'm sighing again...)



"That's so stupid" or "he's going to kill me"... I don't even think twice when I say it...



Now I know better. Life is a learning process. MOTHERHOOD is a learning process. Lessons from my childhood - such as "think before you speak" are all coming back to me now. I now know that I have to think AT LEAST TWICE before I talk :-)



So... what did happen? what awful thing did Layla say to me?



...



...



...



"I'm going to kill you Mom"



...



...



...



WHAT did my two-year old just say to me?



I racked my brain to figure out where she would have heard something like that... why she would say something so awful... and I cringed...



Earlier that day I did something (let's keep some things personal...) that would normally really bother her Dad. I came away from that saying "Oh boy... Your dad is going to kill me".



Before you judge me (I can hear the tongue clicking already)... let me just say that I KNOW. Obviously I shouldn't have said this to a 2-year old. Even if she doesn't understand what the word "kill" means, it was a definite faux-pas and I knew it the split second after it came out of my mouth. A split-second too late.



To finish my story... and redeem my daughter (I won't even try to redeem myself on this one) this all happened while we were in the car. Layla was chatting away on the back seat and started to "pretend" scold me. "You're in trouble Mom... I'm not happy..." (once again mimicking me and repeating the type of things I would say if she were in trouble - you should hear her tone and see her facial expressions when she's doing this... HI-LA-RI-OUS) and I think that (in her two-year old reasoning) she associated what I had said earlier that day "he's going to kill me" with a more familiar phrase "I'm in trouble"... and so... it just came out.



At least it was in the car. A little less embarassing than if she'd said it in the store or in front of friends (though now I AM sharing it with anyone who wants to read about it...)



Hopefully we nipped that in the butt with the following little speech: "Sweetie, you can't say that. It's really not very nice. Mamma never should have said that earlier".



Now let's just hope she never says that again... and never ever thinks that she means it (!)



Sigh



A.