six year old's have no business knowing about wee

So you know, I'm a lover of all kinds of music.  I honestly don't believe in censoring music for the benefit of the kids - I've always kind of considered it a form of art.  Like, almost the same thing if my kid saw a nude painting or you know, that famous statue of the naked guy with the small penis.  What is it, Michelangelo or something?  I can't remember.  ANYWAY I've always been very anti-censoring.  Music, art, books, whatever.  I pretty much feel like if it is relevant, or it isn't like blatantly obnoxious, I am fine with it.  And if there is something that I do find offensive, I just don't put it out there to my kids. I'll just change the channel, turn the station on the radio, fast forward the tune.  We parents have plenty of control over that crap.

On a similar note, I do not swear in front of my kids at all.  We all know how much I love swearing, but I know my audience. And my audience is a very small one without children in it.  Unless if you include the internet, because sometimes I forget about that audience. 

Obviously, rap and hip hop always have a ton of swear words in their songs.  I enjoy a some music from that genre, however I don't usually play it in the car with the kids because it really is very glaringly inappropriate.  Every other word is a bad word, and you can't like, sing along at all without singing some version of Effing effity eff car, g.d. effing gun, em effing drugs, you get the point.  Pretty much every other word is the F word.  And I don't mean "fart."  

Well, so even though I don't believe in censoring, I think I am pretty careful about avoiding the inappropriate tunes.  I'm trying to keep my kids from sounding like a bunch of scuzzy dirtbags for as long as I can.  It's usually about middle school around here before the kids try test out the swearing thing.  

So anyway, I was driving Brooke to school today and it reminded me of a funny thing that happened a few years ago when Brooke and I were driving to elementary school.  A song by Drake and Nicki Minaj came on - Moment 4 Life.  It's pretty inappropriate, for sure.  Normally I would have switched it, but I wasn't paying much attention because Brooke and I were talking about the field trip she was going on that day - she was so excited, she didn't shut her yapper the entire ride.  The song seriously went right over my head, just kind of like light music was playing in the background.

So all of a sudden, Brooke stops mid-sentence and says "There are bad words in this song Mom."  And I was like, "You know, there are some bad words in this song Brooke."  And she goes, "Want me to tell you one of the bad words Mom?  Fuckin'."  And I cringed.  And I was like, shit, how does she know the real F word is a bad word at 6 years old??  Thank you very much Nicki Minaj.  So I don't act all shocked or freaked out because I kind of feel like if you make too much of a big deal about the bad words, those words suddenly become really attractive to a kid, just because they aren't supposed to say them.  So I said, "Yeah, that's a really bad word - you're not allowed to say that."  And she goes, "Yeah, like I couldn't just go into school and say, 'I'm going on a fuckin' field trip today' to my teacher, right Mom?"

And inwardly I was like, omg.  Also, I felt a snitch proud that she completely used the eff word in context.  High five!  No, just kidding.  Kinda.  So I said, "No, no you can't say that word at school, or anywhere.  You'll get in big trouble if you do because it's really inappropriate."  And she goes, "Well what will happen?"  And I said, "Bare hiney spanking."  So she mulls it over for a second and goes, "I know Mom.  I won't say it."  At this point we've reached the crazy stupid drop off line at the elementary school, so I'm just about to kiss her goodbye and she stops and says, "Is 'wee' a bad word?"  And I was like "Wee?"  And she goes, "Yeah, like in the song it says 'smoke some wee.'"  As in weed.  As in pot.  As in currently illegal drug.  

Ugh.  I definitely went straight home and switched around the playlists on my iPod.  Hearing a sweet little innocent voice saying fuck and KIND OF saying weed, and grasping that they are bad things to say made me rethink the censoring of the music in front of little ears thing.  

Because six year old kids have no business knowing about wee.

What do you think about censoring? I sometimes wish I could go back to that time. With one kid in college, one in high school and one in middle school, it seems like they all know about wee, AND all of the bad words.

wait. what?

It's quiet.

Wait.  What?

I just shocked myself a little when I saw that in writing.  I actually did a quick panicked look around.  It's summer and it's quiet.  When my kids were little, if it was summer and quiet something was up.  Once, during Easter break, it was quiet and Megan was cutting a half mullet in her own hair. Right before a little family photo session.  Yep, that wasn't too attractive.  There was no way I was going to help her out and finish the other side either - just throw caution to the wind and COMPLETE the mullet.  No way.  At least with the half mullet nobody thought I was a mullet-loving mother.  I figured this way, anyone who was anyone would know that Megan played Beauty Parlor on herself.  I quickly came to the conclusion that she is a pretty sucky hairdresser.

A three-year-old with scissors.  Sheesh.  Where was her mom anyway?  In my defense, Megan was the best alone player out of all of my kids.  She would go in her room and play dollhouse for hours.  That is not an exaggeration.  And she was happy.  She's a little bit like her mama in that way, kind of a solitary being.  So really, Meg being quiet and out of my eyesight at the same time wasn't cause for alarm.

I went off topic.  Sorry.  I was just pointing out that it's quiet and it's summer.  Kind of an anomaly.  Right?  Well, the two girls are at day camp.  For the entire day.  And their camp happens to be about 40 minutes away, so it's like, the longest day ever here at home.  My kids were gone at like 7:30, and won't be back til probably 5:30ish.  Yow.  I kind of feel like I have all sorts of time to do nothing!

Except today I had to wait for a delivery.  The washer/dryer crapped out, so we needed a new one.  Since when do appliances start dying at just 8 years old?  That's not a very long life.  I mean, even in dog years it's barely middle aged!  I have a stackable unit because my laundry room is super narrow.  When we built the house, the plans called for the laundry to be where the mudroom is, downstairs.  I wanted a mudroom though, and I wanted a laundry room upstairs, so we kind of had to find a place to squeeze it in up there.  The washer part still actually worked fine, but the dryer was totally dead - so we just ended up replacing the entire unit.

Thank COD it got here today because for the past week, I have had laundry hanging all over my house.  A family of 6 generates a ton of laundry.  If I skip a day I'm screwed, you know?  Shockingly, even without a dryer, I have kept up with the laundry.  The towels are as hard and scratchy as cardboard with sandpaper glued to it, but hey.  They're clean!  It's kind of like exfoliating when you dry off after the shower.  I have a freaking spa going on every damn day here.  So it was time.  Time for the fluffy softness that only dryer dried clothes feel like.

Fluffy softness means a lot to me.  

The girls are out for the day, but Alex has been kicking around here, and he's been periodically up my ass about bringing him to Lowe's.  Want to know why?  He wants me to bring him to Lowe's so he can buy himself a shed.

Yep.  A shed.  He priced it out, convinced his buddies to pitch in, and now he wants me to bring him there to pick it up.  He even called his grandpa and secured the dump truck so I could help him get it home.  He can be very resourceful when it's necessary.  Sadly for Alex, I am not driving the non-air conditioned dump truck to Lowe's on a sweltering hot 95+ degree day for a shed (for my teenager).

You might wonder what the hell a 15-year-old is planning on doing with his own shed.  Well, that's a good question guys.  He wants his own fort-type place where he has to do the least amount of actual work to build, so he and his friends can hang out there with a refrigerator.  He is such a goof ball.  And I sometimes wonder where he came from.

But then, I was thinking that Bill Gates pretty much invented Microsoft in his shed and now he's a billionaire.  It may have been a garage that he invented Microsoft in, but whatever.  Close enough.  Maybe Alex is a genius and he's about to make billions in his shed!

Alex taking his big sister for a little ride

And maybe he's just a silly kid who wants to have a refrigerator in the woods.