Cursing: What's in a word?

With parenthood, I have recently noticed come LOTS of changes.. Changes within our lifestyle, as well as changes from within.. First off, I apologize to some of my readers, Recently I haven't had much to blog about except for parenthood because as stated in a few recent posts, My wife and daughter are still the only thing that I can manage to think about. I tried to bring a bit of Humor to this post with this Jeopardy Photo taken off the TV and a few small stories:



One of the changes that I'm trying to make myself is to cuss less. As a Firefighter, EMT, Husband and Father, I've developed quite a mouth, I have lots of friends and family that cuss and honestly, I'm personally not really even offended at the crudest of words when I hear them anymore, I've even found myself using them from time to time. (I don't use this as any kind of an excuse) Sadly, I doubt that this will last very long. I'll certainly keep you all posted.

In a nut-shell, I've recently made this decision to try and cuss less because of my baby girl, I don't want her growing up in a home where she will learn these words. I'd hate for some of my girls first words to be "Shit" or "Damn". I don't make it a goal for myself to quit swearing entirely however because I've made that goal a few times before and fallen quite short. I don't know if I'll ever be able to quit entirely. For me, I guess I've yet to find anything that helps me vent my frustration in a moment's notice like throwing out a few cuss words will, Even better, I think they drive home the extra emphasis when trying to make a serious point.

In a short story, When I was just a kid, My Dad built cabinets in a shop in our back yard, While hanging out with him in the shop, he was moving a cabinet from one spot to another and dropped it in between. The cabinet broke, scaring the hell out of me, and I heard my dad scream the words "Damn-it!" Later that morning, I was back inside the house playing with my set of tool-toys Dad had bought me and I purposely dropped them while screaming like Dad "Damn-it!" Mom wasn't very happy, and I got to scrub out my Dad's tongue with soap. These memories make me smile, But this is what I'd like to try to avoid with my baby girl, I don't like the taste of soap but I think if I managed to teach my girl a cuss word, Like my Dad did, I'd have to pay the repercussions for it.

I have a high deal of respect for people who don't curse. For example: I have a close friend who broke his ankle in several places in a freak accident while hiking in the wilderness, My other friend and I managed to make a stretcher out of our sleeping bags to get him from where we were at to a point where it was flat and near the trail, There I provided what limited medical care I could for him while waiting for our other friend who had run out of the trail to get in touch with Search and Rescue to return and get him in the late late hours of the night. His ordeal lasted for 8 hours before S&R were finally able to get him out of the canyon and into a hospital bed. I bring this up because he went through all of this antagonizing pain all without swearing or cursing Once!