Nuts and Soap

Yesterday was just a crazy day. Busy at work, phones were out, accountants were in, ugh, just crazy. So then I go to pick the boys up. Sam had his third bite mark in as many weeks. Had to have a talk with someone from the school. As I'm having this talk, Mason and his class walked by. I could tell by the look my son gave me that he was in trouble. Sure enough, when I went to get him, I had to have a talk with his teacher. Mason has recently picked up the word "nuts" from a friend at school. And it's driving me crazy. I've heard it a few times here at home and have warned him about it. I've considered talking with his teacher about it, but didn't want to get another child in trouble. Well yesterday, he overloaded the sweet, timid, cute little afternoon teacher with "my nuts this" and "my nuts that." The poor girl had a hard time getting the word out to tell me about it. I promised her we'd take care of it and have a talk with the his primary teacher about the other student as well.
The whole way home Mason didn't speak. He knew it was bad. And he gets this sad look when he's in big trouble, so it makes ME feel bad that I'm fixing to have to have it out with him. We got home and I sent him straight to his room, he was already screaming, "I don't want a spanking!" Really?? I'm thinking, is this really my Friday afternoon??
I had warned Mason before about soap in the mouth when he talked dirty, but had never followed through on it. So I called Mike to see if he was almost home and if he was on board with the soap idea. He was. So, I called Mason to the kitchen table and handed him the bar of soap. That was the end of the world for him. Hysterical, clinging to the chair, "don't put it in my mouth!", crazy. He was ready to take a spanking instead of the soap. I finally got the soap in his mouth and told him to leave it there to clean out his mouth. Then I had to walk away because I WAS ABOUT TO CRY! I made him keep the soap for about a minute. I then asked him if he liked it or if he wanted to say anymore bad words. He is now adamantly against soap in the mouth or any bad words that will put it there. So this was a pretty traumatic twenty minutes Mason and I had. By the time Mike got home I told him I'd handled it and it was over. I did take away his tv too, but I think he was relieved it wasn't worse than that. I now know why my dad always came and hugged me after I got in big trouble as a kid. It sucks having to get onto your kids! It really makes you feel bad! I think it may be harder on us than them. But, I keep reminding myself that I don't want a five year old boy that goes around thinking it's okay to talk about "his nuts."