My two year old son is learning French. I don’t mean the kind avec le pain chocolat et du café au lait (although he’s learning that too, from his Belgian nanny). I mean the kind you have to preface with “Pardon my French.”

My wife and I have tried to play it off as though we don’t understand what he’s saying. Most of the time he lets us think it’s working. I’ll drop his slice of peanut butter toast on the floor (butter side down of course) and he’ll say “Shit! It’s shit daddy, shit!” And I’ll say “What? A ship? Where?” or “ Oh your shirt? It’s a nice shirt. It really suits you.” When that doesn’t work, I just play dumb: “What? I don’t understand. What do you mean?” Eventually we both shrug it off, make a new piece of toast, and watch a little Maisy. I’m sure he thinks I’m an idiot, but if it keeps him from talking like that, it’s fine by me.

The other day we were on our way to see the nanny when a car runs a light right in front of us. I honked and gritted my teeth a bit, but otherwise remained silent. From the back seat I hear, “Fuck.”

“What was that little man?”

“Fuck.”

My wife looked over at me, raised an eyebrow in an accusatory way and said, “Fork?”

“Fuck, mommy. Fuck.”

It was time for me to step in and put a stop to this: “Did you see a truck, Bug? Truck?”

The response was slow and deliberate, “No Daddy, [fʌk].” If he could spell he would have. I’ve never heard a child be so definitive. To have a two year old demonstrate such a clear understanding of compensatory strategies was shocking to me. He knew that slowing his speech and enunciating would increase the chances that I would understand him.

It was all I could do to keep from laughing. My wife and I let it go, and Evan didn’t bring it up again. After dropping him with the nanny my wife got back into the car. She closed the door and pulled on her seat belt. “We’ll have to be more careful.” She said.

“Yeah, but that was pretty cool, wasn’t it.”