Dad tip #7: What you say in front of your kids WILL come back to haunt you

To be completely forthcoming, I have not yet had the awkward pleasure of learning this lesson first hand. My kid is just short of five months old and my cat has spoken more clearly disernable English than my human child. (The cat said, "Hello," once. Really. It was pretty creepy.)

However, I have heard plenty of anecdotes from a whole slew of mothers and fathers; but none so entertaining or memorable as the one I heard from my father-in-law this morning. When my wife was two or three years old, my father-in-law was in the process of removing an annoying tree from their property. Apparently this tree must've been an extremely annoying tree because the following conversation occurred:

"That damn tree is not looking any better!"

"That's not a Damn Tree, it's a F***IN' Tree!"

Ah, the logic of my wife as a child ... Clearly if dad keeps referring to the tree as a F***IN' Tree, that must be its technical designation like its Latin name or something.

Now I think I not-so-secretly harbor the hope that one day I'll be watching reruns of Battlestar Galactica on the Sci Fi Channel and my son will become conditioned to only refer the toaster as a "Frakkin' Toaster".

"Mom?!?!? Can you put some Eggos in the Frakkin' Toaster?!?!?"

Frak yeah! Leggo my frakkin' Eggo! (My wife is so not going to be frakkin' amused.)

Frak.