The unwanted milestone: the first time your toddler repeats a swear word

There are many milestones that all parents will cherish forever.

Your baby's first word, when they take their first steps, their first tooth. Many precious moments that you'll love documenting in their baby book. But there are some other 'firsts' that we aren't so quick to brag about on Facebook and recently I experienced one of them. One of the milestones that they don't make a card for: when your toddler says their first swear word. This very special occasion was bestowed upon me recently but to be fair it was totally my own fault. I swear and as much as I've trained myself not to do it around my six-year-old, there is the odd slip up from time to time. Now my son knows better than to repeat me but try and tell that to a one-year-old. She had woken up the other morning and as I was attempting to retrieve her from her cot I tripped on a blanket that was on the floor and fell against her cot whacking my arm. Instinctually I swore and it was a bad one too. The 'B' word that rhymes with frolics.  Then just as I was about to pick her up, my lovely baby girl looked up into my face smiling and repeated what I had just said. Not gonna lie, I swore again. ( 'S' word that rhymes with pit.) There's not much we can do about it as it inevitably happens, whether our child hears it from us or some random person on the bus. Kids are like sponges that absorb everything, even if we don't want them too. Experts often say that preschool age or younger is the best time to teach our children a second language but I'm pretty sure this isn't what they meant so I'm going to have to get better at checking myself before I speak. Until then I'll just have to hope that my daughter doesn't repeat her new word again but if she does, I'm totally saying she picked it up off someone on the bus.