What the h***?

Luke said a bad word today.  Mrs. B texted me at work to inform me.

I was shocked.  Disappointed.  Angry.  Crushed.

I spent the next few hours at work trying to figure out how to deal with his transgression.  Where did he even hear something like that?  Probably from one of the boys at school, I figured.  I had to punish him.  Didn't I?

I had stopped by the grocery store on the way home.  Three bags.  Sixty-seven dollars.  He came outside.  Possibly to gauge my mood.

"Do you have anything to tell me?"  I asked.

"Um... I'm sorry?" he offered.

"For what?"

"For saying a bad word."

"Did you know it was bad?"

"No.  A girl in my class said it, and she said it was okay to say."  

Tears were welling in his eyes.  I softened.

"Well, we don't say that, ok?"

"OK."

"And if you're not sure if something is ok to say in the future, just ask me, okay?"

"OK."

Mrs. B informed me that he was worried I was going to be mad at him.  I know from long ago experience that was punishment enough. And I believed him that he didn't know it was something he wasn't supposed to say.  This is a kid that very recently still admonished anyone who said, "Oh my gosh," with a quick, "We don't say that."

He is eight-and-a-half.  Four-foot-six.  His life filled with chicken nuggets, football, basketball, YouTube videos, and questions I rarely know the answers to.

His sister is six.  Three weeks from turning seven.  Going on fourteen.  Her world full of Barbies and Disney princesses and possibilities.

Almost every day, I find moments to simply sit and watch them.  To take in their cuteness and innocence. 

I try to appreciate these moments, these days.  And yet, I can feel them slowly walking from me.

Time was I had a vice grip on them.  Times when they were completely dependent – for food, milk, diaper changes, to simply hold their head up, survival.  

I think what I was most sad about when I received the text from Mrs. B was that inevitable loss of innocence.

But as I spoke calmly to him this afternoon, even as it broke my heart to see him on the verge of tears, it also provided comfort in some strange way.

I saw a scared little boy, so afraid of disappointing his dad.

I saw innocence.  If only for a little while longer.  And I hugged him.  Tightly.  

And maybe a little longer than normal.