From the mouths of babes

There are many bad habits in this world which can cause us pain or embarrassment and one of the milder of which I am guilty is swearing. I don’t know why this is such a problem with me: as kids we were never allowed to swear. Even the work ‘bum’ was considered off limits. My parents didn’t, and still don’t, swear and yet for some reason as I grew older it became a habit.
As every parent knows, swearing, like toga parties and Tequila slammers, is a habit that you have to lose with kids in the house. It’s just not right to turn the air blue in front of your kids because guess what? They will remember everything you say and repeat it back to you, probably in front of their primary school teacher or in your mother in law’s church.
I’ve grown better at taming my tongue since Niels was born. A perfect example: this morning I was trying to remove the empty 19 litre bottle from the top of the water cooler in our kitchen. It was stuck so I gave it a mighty yank and it flew off and smashed into the bridge of my nose with a CRACK!!! Convinced that it was broken and in considerable pain I was standing there with my hands pressed to my face to stop half of it sliding off and falling onto the kitchen floor with a wet splat and muttering fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck quietly when Niels came running in. “What’s wrong Mummy?”
“NOTHIIIIIIIIIING!” was my highly restrained reply. How’s that for self control?
Of course the occasional slip up is inevitable. One rainy afternoon I was driving to the supermarket. At a set of traffic lights road works had funnelled the traffic into one narrow lane. I was at the head of the queue and as I came to a stop a suicidal scooter rider – one of many who totally disregard the traffic rules – rushed up on the wrong side, and squeezed ahead of me, narrowly avoiding ending his day under my front wheels. “Stupid asshole” I muttered under my breath, wondering yet again how it’s possible that there are any scooter riders left alive in Singapore. As the light turned green we pulled away from him and Carl – who I had forgotten was sitting quietly in the back seat – leaned up against the rear window, fixed the scooter rider with a steely glare and screamed at the top of his voice: “YOU STUPID ASSHOLE!!”