Going "Potty Mouth" in the Restroom of a NE Philly Target
I'm used to going to Target and coming home with more than I originally noted on my list. But when the kids and I headed over to the big red bullseye's Roosevelt Boulevard store this evening for a simple birthday card, we arrived home with a very different sort of unexpected item -- a touch of innocence lost.
We had just begun to browse the card section when my three-year-old announced that she needed to go to the potty. Cake walk, I thought. I congratulated myself that the cart was still empty. All I had to do was wheel back over to the restrooms, disembark two toddlers and brave the stalls.
Minutes later, the three of us were spooned against each other in a stall cheering my three-year-old's success when we heard the restroom door swing forcefully open. In rushed the sound of a tense exchange between a mom and child, half-drowned out by the intense, bleating cries of an infant.
My two-year-old's eyes grew saucer-like as the frantic "wah wah wah wah's" continued. I assured her that the baby probably just needed to be changed, and found myself thinking back to the store-aisle infant meltdowns that had nearly sent me over the edge not so long ago.
Still absorbed in the baby's sounds as we jostled around with wiping and flushing and finishing our business, I suddenly became aware that my older daughter's mouth was moving with unusual care. She was repeatedly muttering something under her breath, trying it out as if to make better sense of it.
It turned out to be her very first curse word.
"S - - -," she was murmuring. Then she said it firmly and loudly, enunciating the final "T" for good measure. "S - - -," she declared. "Mommy, that's a new word."
Shell-shocked, all I could muster in response was a shaky, "Oh, honey, that's not a nice word. We don't use that word." We pulled the stall door open and spilled out, only to come face-to-face with the source of the sounds we'd heard -- a harried-looking mom and her preteen daughter huddled over a squirming infant on the pulldown changing table. The mom met my eyes right away.
"I am SO sorry," she said.
"That's OK," I said, feeling light-headed as I steered the girls toward the sinks and a fast exit. My daughter didn't mention her freshly expanded vocabulary again. Only time will tell if the incident actually went over her head, but it clocked me with the force of a brick.
We've entered a stage where she's drinking in grown-up knowledge without a filter. This time around, that knowledge crept in even as we stood in the same bathroom stall. So I wonder -- will I have enough parenting agility to better direct and interpret the flow down the line?
Original Philly Moms Blog post.
Susan Busch also blogs about raising close siblings at One Year Apart.
Image: db*photography
