Reasons My 5 yo Failed Her No “Shit” Chart

It was becoming a real problem. Every oops a “shit!” Every boo boo, every lost stuffie: Shit shit shit. I don’t know where she learned it, but something had to change so my 5 yo could live in polite society. Motivated by the promise of buying her own Bitzee, she decided to make a chart outlining the 7 days of the week. Every day that passed without saying “shit,” she’d be one day closer to $30. (Inflation is real.) But every day, something happened that kept her from getting a checkmark.

“Does it have to be 7 days consecutively?” she pleaded.

“Yes,” her dad and I replied.

“Shit!”

“I guess we’ll start tomorrow.”

Below, a list of reasons she never could make it past Wednesday:

• It was too late to watch Bluey
• It was mom’s night to put her to bed
• It was dad’s night to put her to bed
• She could not find Bomby, her squishmallow
• She had to walk 50 feet to the car
• Dad bought mango yogurt instead of berry
• She drew eyebrows on the dog and one of the eyebrows was more arched than the other
• She would have had to break eye contact with the TV to get a glass of water because mom would not come downstairs to get it for her
• She spilled the water
• She had to go to summer camp
• She had to put sunscreen on
• She had to help clean her room before she could watch more Bluey
• The red marker was out of ink and the other 5 red markers were more than an arm’s reach away
• The assault on public education, women’s bodies, and democracy

Things that happened that she did not say “shit!” to:

• She peed her pants
• She tripped
• A bug bite swelled her heel up like a little Mount Fuji
• She did not flush the toilet and the dog took out her poop and put it on the floor