Beep beep

Public Service Announcement: children are little sponges who mimic their parents/care takers. "That's pretty common knowledge," you say. Yes, I'd heard it plenty myself. But we have a new development here that is really driving the point home.

I taught my kids to say "beep." It was fine at first. You know, like when you're playing with cars and trucks, and they drive around, they say "beep beep!" Well, without consciously thinking about it, I also say "beep beep" to the kids when I want them to them to move out of my way - when they're sitting in front of a cupboard I need to open, standing in the middle of a doorway I'm trying to walk through, etc.

So a few weeks ago, they started saying "beep beep beep beep beep!" to each other, me, Dad, and anyone else who is in their space. Gus lays down on a puzzle; Gibson pushes him while whining "beep beep!" I'm sitting on the couch and a kid wants my spot...a shrill series of "beep beep beep!" compels me to relocate. They "beeped" their grandparents and other relatives when we were visiting recently.

At first, it was cute and I cracked up about it. Then I realized that I've basically taught my children to say "beep" instead of any number of polite phrases we could have learned. Oh dear!

Now we're trying to backtrack. DF was playing trucks with them and had the truck say, "Excuse me! I'd like to drive through." I wonder if they can make the switch to "cooz" or something similar. Beep is so easy to say...