What's a Crapbox?

 We are not a family who swears. I raised my children to respect the English language and they all know that I ABHOR the "F" word – used alone or followed by "you". The repulsive and ugly word will not pass my lips.

Although I must admit, one day, in utter frustration, because I wanted my kids to know I was EXTREMELY upset, I uttered the offensive expression. My kids LAUGHED at me and said, "Mom, if you're going to use that word, learn how to say it correctly."

How can anybody not say that word correctly? It's truly ugly. I imagine "FU" might sound prettier if it was spelled like this: phucqueue. But it's not.

I bring up the "F" word only because I want to bring attention to the fact that cursing is not part of my vocabulary and it is not something I have taught my children.

However, kids live in a world filled with people who speak loathsome words, and we can't help but hear them spoken sometimes.

Well, yesterday, as Brittney (my youngest daughter) and I were having a cup of coffee, Audrey (her 5-year-old daughter) ran out of her bedroom, her face beaming with excitement. "Wanna see what I found in my crapbox?"

I looked at Brittney. Brittney looked at me. Our eyebrows crossed.

"What did you say, Audrey?"

"Come see what I found in my crapbox!"

"Are you saying crayon box?" We don't know why we asked her that – she's been speaking very clearly since before she was 2 years old, but we asked anyway.

"No, my crapbox."

Brittney and I were puzzled. As Audrey ran back to her room, thinking we were following her, I asked Brittney, "What's a crapbox? And where did she learn that word?"

So Brittney asked her why she was calling her box – that held miscellaneous items such as hair ties, crayons, and puzzle pieces – a crapbox. (Maybe the excitement was because Nolan, her little brother, had dropped a bit of his own "crap" in there – who knows).

Anyway, Audrey is an inventive little girl who has an imagination that allows her to gather information from various parts of her brain and create mysterious word combinations. Maybe somebody once told her to pick up all her crap and she assimilated the word into her vocabulary, because her only nonchalant comment was, "Oh, that's just what I call it."

Brittney told Audrey to call it her miscellaneous box, which she couldn't pronounce.

Photo above is of Nolan and Audrey hiding in the couch cushions.