Thursday, September 06, 2007

Honey Nut

Kayleigh is growing up. Yes, you see it in the lovely lady lumps on her chest. You see it in the pimply bumps on her forehead. You smell it when she neglects to use deodorant. You hear it in her laughter at "French & Saunders" and "Honey Nut Shetbags."

And tonight you could hear it coming from her mouth. We were playing one of those BrainQuest trivia/knowledge games before bed. She forgot what an antonym was and said, "I don't know what the hell they're talking about."

What's a parent to do? Especially one as foul as I am? I've not been a pristine role model, cussing up a storm and showing her things like the aforementioned Honey Nut Shetbags.

She immediately started to explain it away. "Everyone around me talks like that, even at school. I hear it all the time." Uh-huh.

I'm watching one kid trot off to the bus herself and listening to the other one invoke the underworld.

Eric shouted from the living room, "Dollar!"

You see, every time Kayleigh catches me swearing, I owe her a dollar. It's been an incentive to turn my potty mouth 10,000 Flushes blue tablet clean.

I laughed, of course, which is not the best reaction--or the worst. Although laughter might be seen as acceptance, no teen wants her parents laughing at her. I asked her what we should do. She said she'd give me a dollar. Hmm....

I told Kelsey to go brush her teeth and Kayleigh to go take a shower and wash her mouth out while she was in there. Kayleigh changed the subject. She's been avoiding us ever since.

P.S. If you haven't seen Kelly's "Shoes," the video about her Hollywood meeting (the one I called "Honey Nut Shetbags") will be meaningless to you. They're weird. The more you watch Shoes, the funnier it gets, until it's not funny anymore.

6 comments:

christian said...

Hillarious, it's nice to see Eric make a cameo in your blog. (That was my favorite part!)

the rotten correspondent said...

I have a mouth like a sailor and know it's going to come back to bite me in the butt. So far none of my kids really use the words I try so hard not to. I think my time may be running out.

dgibbs said...

I have a 14yr old and a 13yr old, both girls, I so relate.

Once they were both in the tub, they were 5 & 6 at the time and being really loud. Their Dad who was on the phone shouted "Be quiet I'm on the damn phone!"

The older replied "Sorry Dad, we didn't know you were on the damn phone!"

There have been a few more slip ups, but with my foul mouth, they should be congratulated for only having a few.

dgibbs said...

By the way never saw French & Saunders before..damn funny!

Amy said...

Christian, glad you enjoyed it. I think Eric was a mix of resignation and restraint in his reaction to Kayleigh's little slip of the tongue.

dgibbs--French & Saunders are fantastic. You can get a lot of their stuff, and their work apart from each other, here in the U.S. now. It's great. That reminds me that I have two DVDs waiting for me at the library. And kids hear it all and repeat it at the most inopportune moments.

Kath, lots of swear words make it onto television here. That doesn't mean it's OK to be swearing, though. Rather a mixed message for kids. The f-bomb doesn't make it onto television, though. That one's considered very rude. As far as America's cultural imperialism, I think you'll still be surprised by a few things. It's funny the assumptions people make. And keep in mind that even we can't figure ourselves out!

Amy said...

Biblical buggering...I think they covered that in Sodom and Gomorrah.