Potty Mouth Pinocchio

My Mother- in- Law is so sweet and she stayed at our house and kept Mitchell and Sophie while we house hunted for two days. She took Mitchell to school, Sophie to ballet, helped with homework, etc. What a relief to know our kids were well taken care of while we were gone. We were so excited to come home and see everyone. After “Grandma” left and we were catching up with Mitchell he said, “I had a yellow day at school” (meaning he got in trouble). I asked him why and he said, “Mom, I said Jack-azz and that’s a cuss word, but I didn’t know it was a cuss word.” I said, “ Well, how did you use the word?” You know, just in case he was talking about a stubborn donkey pulling a plow. I had to give him the benefit of the doubt for a half second. Okay, so maybe it was more like denial. He said, “I drew a picture of a turkey and then held it up and said ‘does that look like a jack azz?’” After he was ratted out by another student (and I’m glad he was) he asked his teacher what a jack azz was.  As he was telling me all this I was thinking to myself: Do I really correct him on how to say it right? Do I just let him think that’s how you say it or what?

Something about correcting my son on how to say jack ass right felt very wrong. But rest assure I did explain that it was inappropriate to say and why.  I was sure this encounter with Mitchell’s first cuss word was the product of “public school” but when I asked him where he had heard that word before he said, “It’s on Pinocchio.” We just bought the movie for Sophie recently thinking it was a good old classic. I remember watching the movie and cringing at that part but was hoping neither of them would pick up on it but obviously I was wrong! And of course this would happen on the one day, out of the entire first semester, that his Grandmother picks him up from school. I guess it could be worse, though. It could have waited to come out on his first day of Christian School in a few weeks!