double stumper

Here is how it has been in our house for about two weeks now. We tell Annabelle "no" about something and her response is "Double Stumper!" And for some reason it sounds to us like she really means to say "Mother Jumper," except not so much jumper as f@#$er. The first time she did it we all got quiet. "Where did you learn that Annabelle?" I asked. "I just learned it up." she said, which means she made it up. Hmmm. The thing is, if there is one thing we have been really good about with her, it is not cursing. So she says things rats and fiddlesticks quite often.

But now there is the big daddy-o. Double stumper. She says it appropriately and with verve. And I'll give her a 10 for creativity. Hell, we are saying now.

Once, when I was a kid, I was reading Little House on the Prairie and noticed that Ma was chiding Pa for exclaiming something like "oh merciful heavens." I asked my dad about this and he said it was because it used to be that any exclamation at all, like drat or rats used to be considered cursing. Wow.

So here I am, stuck in a post-Little-House era with a child that invents her own curse words. Double Stumper indeed.