My best friend Mia mouthed this to me the other night while Benjamin and Sydney, her four year old daughter, were huddled beneath us eating cookies.

I had been talking about another adult, someone everyone in the room knows and has contact with frequently. Bad mommy. And naive mommy.

I may know a lot about being a dating single mom, but this mommy stuff – all of the rules – not so much. Mia is a few years ahead of me so she gives me pointers whenever she sees an “issue” cropping up. I welcome them and thank her profusely.

On the way to daycare this morning Benjamin started worming his way out of his car seat straps. He likes to do this because it pisses me off, I turn my head and he gets a mouth full of concerned shouts.

“Benjamin! Get your arms back in there! If you don’t – and we crash – you could go splat and die! Now put your arms back in there! Die, get it? Splat – dead.”

“Die! Die! Die! DIIIIIEEEEEEE!” shouts Benjamin.

Uh-oh. Distraction needed. He can’t go into daycare saying “Die!”

I turn up the radio. The girl on the air is so annoying. I flip the station – even worse.

“God, these people are HORRIBLE.”

“Orubleee. Orrrruble. Orub?”

“It’s horrible, honey, horrible.” I sound it out carefully. Is this okay? Where’s Mia when I need her? But he needs to know how to say horrible, right? It’s a useful word.

“Horubule!”

“Nice! You got it, baby!”

I love this kid talking thing btw – makes being a single mom much, much easier. Just have to watch it from now on. What are the MOST EMBARRASSING things your kids have repeated in public? Teach me some lessons, please …

[Photo credit]

Related posts:

1. Daycare ladies: a tribute to my better halves.
2. What’s a single working mama to do?
3. A sweet little reunion.