When Toddlers Drop the "F" Bomb...In Church.

It happened.  My (nearly) three year old son has learned his first dirty word.  He enjoys using his "sentence enhancer" on a regular basis to which we always tell him "that's just a lawnmower, buddy! Stop using the dirty word." I thought it was bad when he said it in front of my mother-in-law.  But, you know what's worse than that?  When he says it in Church.

Our family attends Catholic mass once a week at our local church.  Our son is far from an angel in church.  So much so that we head straight to the cry room and don't even attempt sitting in a pew.  He does pretty well there.  So, for those tuning in who are unfamiliar with a Catholic church, let me give you a basic lay out of what we see every Sunday at 10:30 A.M.  We immediately enter the cry room as quickly as possible and through the glass window we have a clear view of the altar, the priest, and the Crucifix that hangs from the ceiling.  Every service, I try to teach our son at least a little bit about Jesus and what we are learning about that Sunday, in between telling him to stop running, sit down, stop yelling, get up off the floor, and keep his shoes on.  He has the basic concept about Jesus down for his age level which is great!  What is NOT so great is that the past two Sundays we have walked in, sat down, and he proudly announces "look mommy! It's %*#&*#&$ Jesus!!"  No. no no no no. In the words of famous rapper Eminem, "He didn't just say what I think he did, did he?!"  Yea, he did.  Loud and clear for the entire room to hear!

I was at a loss for words.  My toddler just dropped the "F" bomb while talking about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  My sweet, little, blue-eyed, blonde boy in his cute little red polo and blue plaid shorts just said the dirtiest of dirty words in a place where it's pretty frowned upon to say those things.  I'm blaming his dad....mostly... So what should I do?! I have a split second to correct this behavior.  He clearly doesn't feel that there is a problem, he was just really, really, really excited to see Jesus that day!  So, I did what any clever mother would do, I responded with "yes son, Jesus loved foxes too, just like you do!"

He doesn't even know what a fox looks like.  But, I saved us both a little embarrassment that day and everyone thought it was just so sweet that this cute little boy was thanking God for the foxes.  But I know what he said.  I know he was just THAT excited to see Jesus.  I don't want to smash this wonderful enthusiasm.  So, for now, he knows that Jesus loves him and Jesus really loves foxes too.