Is it ok to swear in front of your kids?

Have you ever been following someone on a highway to a place you have never been and lost them at a toll because you forgot to bring your speed pass? So you sit at that toll for 15 minutes jockeying for position in a sea of hundreds of cars funneling through three very slow toll booths. As the 15 minutes eek by you try to call the people you were following but they don't answer their phone.

You, BTW, have no clue how to get where you are going. Because you are the only people on the planet without a GPS and didn't think to Mapquest your destination before you left.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Time is creeping by. You will be late assuming you even get there.

Is that guy serious? Is he really going to try to cut me off? Is he f''n kidding me? Your sole goal in life is now whittled down to keeping that idiot from getting in front of you. Forgetting that just 5 minutes prior you sat there in the same wrong lane trying to cut off the poor sucker now behind you.

This is the scenario we found ourselves in yesterday. Hubby was driving, kids in the back seat and tempers rising. We were on our way to watch my nephew be the honorary captain for the New England Cannons, a professional lacrosse team, who play at Harvard University Stadium. Ooo la la!

The honor is all the more special because my nephew walks with great difficulty. He can't run or jump like his friends but he lets nothing hold him back. In his neighborhood he hangs with a group of boys who ride bikes as he whips along on a motorized scooter. He is just Noah to them. Just one of the guys. He'd kill me for saying so but he is adorable in that cool dude fourth grader way. Being honorary captain at the game on a night when most of his home town lacrosse players and their families would be in the audience was a big deal for him and our whole family.

And we are now late and lost. The Auntie of the Year Award is slipping through my fingers.

Through the tolls and back in phone contact with the group we were following things are looking better. Until....

"Do I go straight here or turn?? WELL..... DO I??" Hubby is asking. Print doesn't do justice to the tension and tone in his voice. Just trust me, pleasant it was not. I have no clue where to go and he is freaking out because the traffic is insane. We go straight. Guess what? We should have turned. No biggie. Right? Go down a block turn around and BAM! we are smack in dead stop traffic.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

We are now in and amongst Harvard University buildings. We can see the Charles River. The sun is splitting the rocks outside our car on a beautiful spring day. People are strolling hand-in-hand on a lovely Saturday afternoon. And inside our car all hell is breaking loose.

"He's touching me!"

"No! You're touching me!"

"Are we going to miss Noah?" Now tears and whining.

"We won't have any time to play!"

"Too frigging bad. Now shut the F up until we get out of this traffic." Yep, that is what we said. 'Frigging' , 'shut up' and 'f''. The whole package of no no's in parenthood and just outside the walls of Harvard.

Hubby hates driving in the city when he knows where he is going and has forever to get there; so being lost in dead stop traffic with the real premise of missing Noah's big moment and the kids annoying the crap out of him is not bringing out the Zen in him. Or in me either for that matter.

Eventually we get back to the road we need; but, go to the wrong parking lot.

Tick. Tick. TICK! TICK!!!!!!

Oh we get there. We even have some time to spare. However, being just out of traffic and a labyrinth of Cambridge roads, we are far from good company.

My pal, Laura, meets me at the tail gate with a vodka laden Cape Codder. What a girl!

Family, friends and neighbors cheer as Noah's name is announced and we see him on the jumbo tron. A great night. A stellar night for that matter! But...

...the question remains. Is it OK to swear in front of your kids?