“Mom… can I say the word ‘crap’?”

I put my fork down and mentally prepare myself for this week’s dinner deliberation. I try to make myself look large. “Do we really need to go here? At dinner-time?” I give him my most femme-fatale frown. He doesn’t flinch.

“Absolutely not, Eden!” I clear my throat. “‘Crap’ is a vulgar word. Why would you need to use a word like that?”

He slurps up a spaghetti noodle with such intensity it resembles a flailing fire hose. There’s tomato splatter on his t-shirt, his cheeks, the wall, and the ceiling fan. I heave a sigh. Good grief, this could rival the “Why-Do-I-Have-to-Change-My-Underwear” Debate of 2006!

“Because…” he lowers his eyebrows and wipes his mouth on the inside of his shirt, “because Robin is allowed to say ‘crap’ and Jordan is allowed to say ‘crap’ and Trent is allowed to say ‘crap’ and Grayson is allowed to say ‘crap’ and Matthew is allowed to say ‘crap’…” He pauses for oxygen and I quickly interject. Does he think I just fell off the truck? He’s managed to say ‘crap’ five times in just the last sentence.

“Eden, first of all, if you say c-r-a-p one more time…” I can’t believe I’m actually spelling it, “you’re gonna be in more c-r-a-p than a sewer rat. Just because your friends use that dirty word, doesn’t mean their parents allow it.” I try to talk while maneuvering a forkful of spaghetti through gritted teeth. The noodles unravel and I have to start again. Who am I kidding? I’m as unraveled as the pasta. For me, dinner deliberations are merely foreplay for acid indigestion. I reach for the antacids and forge on.

“You never answered my question. Why do you need to use a vulgar word like that, anyways?”

“Because I’m ten!” He spits it out like I’ve forbidden some sacred rite of passage. His twin brother moves into the ring with a couple of snake eyes. They’re playing me like a game of “craps,” but apparently I don’t get to roll.

“Ya!” Indi hisses. “We’re ten! We should be allowed to say ‘crap.’ Robin is allowed to say ‘crap’ and Jordan is allowed to say ‘crap’ and Trent is allowed to say ‘crap’ and Grayson is allowed to say ‘crap’ and Matthew is allowed to say ‘crap!’ And some of them are even younger than us!”

“Enough! Both of you!” I stare at them blankly. And to think these children came from my womb. I’m about to say something totally unthinkable and then it happens: I do the one thing I’ve always said I would never do, the one thing I’ve committed ten years of my life to circumvent.

I sound just like my mother.

“Fiddlesticks!” I announce. I look around to make sure I’ve said it out loud. “If you’re frustrated and just have to say something, then say… ‘FIDDLESTICKS’!” I say it with vicious enthusiasm to demonstrate how effective an expletive it is. “See? Doesn’t that sound better? Awww, FIDDLESTICKS’!”

They look at me with the same twisted expression I had thirty years ago. The room is silent, save for the buzzing flies now conjugating on my pasta. Eden plops face down in his spaghetti and Indi slouches back in his chair, ready to catch the buzzing flies in his gaping maw.

I can’t believe I said it. I mean, really…? That, without a doubt, is the lamest curse I’ve ever heard. After all the years I put in to be a mom who’s cool, hip, sweet, and random, I’ve blown it in the time it took to say “fiddlesticks.” Mirror, mirror, on the wall, I am my mother after all!

It’s a weird phenomenon, isn’t it? We hated it when our parents said it. In fact, we hate it still. But catch us in a moment of weakness and “poof!” it spills out of our mouth like a truckload of manure. Things like: “Just because your friends jumped off a bridge, it doesn't mean you have to,” or “Just wait until your father gets home,” or “Because I said so, that's why!” I pick up my fork and start re-raveling noodles.

“Did you really say ‘fiddlesticks,’ Mom?” Eden looks up at me like he’s trying to give me the benefit of the doubt. I take a deep breath. I’ve got… to break… the cycle.

“Fiddlesticks? Er… No! I meant CHOPsticks. That’s it… CHOPSTICKS! It would be so much easier to eat this if I had a pair of chopsticks.” I give him a random smile. “Now eat your dinner. There’s children starving in Africa, you know.”