My Son's Potty Mouth

I must say the shame of my ability as a parent begins.  I was sitting with a cup of coffee at my side this morning, and my son, Augustus, climbed in my lap to play.  We got to wrestling a bit, and his arm flared out and tipped the coffee cup.  There the cup stood teetering back and forth on the edge of the arm of the sofa on which we were sitting.  At that point, I responded to the potential disaster that would be the spilling of a cup of coffee on our new sofa or the possible breaking of my wife's Longaberger cup.  My response was shameful.  I said "Oh ...," Well you know what I said.

My son turned two years old a month ago, and he is at that phase when he repeats everything that seems interesting to say.  He has also been very good with his "S" words for some time now.  Some of his favorite words to say are, "stuck," "step," "story," and "SH" words like, "show," "shush," and "ship."  This morning he added a new "SH" word to his repertoire.  Now I generally love it when a new word enters his vocabulary, but obviously this time was not one of those times.

As I mentioned before, I cursed in response to the my coffee cup's potential tumbling onto our sofa and/or floor this morning.  Luckily I was able to catch the cup before it did.  But the word did come out of my mouth.  Right after the point of catching the cup, I breathed a sigh of relief and looked at Augustus.  There he sat on my lap looking at his daddy with a quizzical yet enthusiastic expression, and he said slowly and clearly, "shhhhh----iiii---."  "Oh no," I thought.  Here it really begins.

My son is like a sponge and fully conscious of everything that goes on, especially the actions and words of his daddy.  I must learn to watch what I say.  I guess it is time to begin thinking about alternatives for those words that I might say in frustration, pain, or responses to trouble.  Anyone have suggestions.  Obviously "fudge," "shucks," and "mother of pearl." are possibilities.  I think there might be more interesting words to include.  Unfortunately I am expressive so holding my tongue is probably not going to happen.  Well feel free to respond to my query.