On Friday morning, Erin and I were sitting in the living room when she abruptly turned to me and asked, "Do you want to play a game with me?"
"Sure, why not? What did you have in mind?"
"Umm, I want to play checkers."
"Oooh... checkers is a good idea, Let's play, Erin."
She pulled out the box and went about setting up the board. After giving her a brief refresher course on the rules (made necessary because initially she wanted to put our checkers on opposite color squares, and jump in any direction, as many squares as she desired), we got down to playing. As we played, I coached her as to where she should move her pieces, and taught her to think about the potential consequences of each move. I jumped a bunch of her checkers, but also sacrificed a bunch of mine in the interest of teaching the game. After a while, she was doing pretty well on her own, and I began to give less instruction. Inevitably, her concentration lapsed and she put one of her checkers in harm's way which I obligingly had to claim by jumping it with one of my own.
"DAMN!!"
Somewhat surprised, I looked up from the board at her face. She was still looking down at the checkerboard, as if nothing had happened.
"What did you say, Erin?"
"I SAID DAMN!!"
"Damn?!?!"
"Yes Dadoo, Damn. That's what I said. I said Damn. Damn is what you're supposed to say when you're angry, right? What's wrong?"
"First of all, stop saying Damn. It's not a nice word for anyone to say, and you're too little to say it."
"But I'm a big girl."
"Yes, you are a big girl... but not big enough, OK? And secondly, when you're mad or frustrated, I don't want you saying Damn, OK? You can say darnit, or sheesh, or gosh, or gee, or just put your hand on your forehead and groan like this," I demonstrated the gesture and said, "arghhhhh! Got it?"
"Got it. Can I say Damn when I'm as big as you? Because you say it all the time."
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