"Dumb Shitheads"

Our little terrible 2 year old has entered a new and particularly dreadful rebellious phase.  I picked him up from daycare the other night and his teacher asked me "who calls him a shithead?".  Apparently he had called not only her, but another teacher a "shithead".  We have been disciplining him for using bad words at home, but the worst he has said up until then was "stupid".  Now that he has used an actual swear word in public, I'm more concerned about the problem.  His teachers probably think we sit around the house cussing at each other.  I want so badly to explain, "it's only in traffic where a few choice words might slip out".  Somehow I doubt they would buy it. 

Truth be told, I do feel responsible for his potty mouth.  Everyone told me that when I had kids, an instinctual motherly urge to protect my little ones from the ugliness of curse words would kick in.  After years of relying on strings of obscenities to release my frustrations, I would suddenly switch to child friendly expressions like "gosh darn it" or "fudge"..  Needless to say, that instinct never kicked in with me.  Lily heard enough cursing to make a sailor blush, yet she never repeated a word.  So I expected Nate to be the same way.  Take it all in, and keep it in the vault.  To my dismay, my secret arsenal of four-letter verbal daggers is being exposed by a mischievous,  shock-seeking two year old.

I don't know how to react or fix the problem.  Up until now, we have used redirection or timeouts (aka the "thinking chair") to discourage the behavior.  It hasn't worked, obviously.  He has now advanced to using the term "dumb shitheads", the adjective creatively added sometime between the first and the hundredth usage.  Since the problem has escalated, if it were up to me I would escalate his punishment to soap or vinegar on the tongue.  I'm confident that would stop the "shitheads" and keep him from moving on to even worse profanities.  But Tom is vehemently against it.  He thinks it would teach violence. 

Speaking of Tom, he admits to using the word shit in front of the kids, but claims he never uses it in the form of "shithead".  Imagine my shock when he called Mitt Romney a shithead the other night, with both kids present!  I guess the problem is not only me, but two parents who lack verbal self-control.  As long as Lily stays her sweet, soft-spoken self, our family will have some dignity.