“Uh-oh!”

It was an accident, she pinky-promises.

But it doesn’t matter — the orange juice that was in her plastic Snow White cup two seconds ago is now a ginormous lake in the middle of the shiny wooden table.

“Dammit,” she mutters, her blond pigtails swishing as she shakes her head. The lake is now a river, rushing toward the edge. “Dammit, dammit, dammit.”

“Kimberly!”

“Sorry!” The four-year-old looks up with wide eyes. “Didn’t mean to.”

“I know, honey — it’s just some juice,” her mom reassures her, mopping at the mess with a paper towel. “But where did you hear that word?”

Kim turns her head to look at the back of her dad’s blue T-shirt across the kitchen. He’s busy flipping pancakes.

“Um ... ” She closes her mouth, hesitating. Was it bad? Was it time-out bad?

Her mom frowns and crosses her arms. “Kimberly.”

“From, um ... ” She trails off, stalling.

“Kim-ber-ly.”

Her mom means business, she can tell.

“From Daddy,” she admits in her most quiet inside voice.

“Jack!”

Her dad turns, a spatula in one hand and a plate stacked with blueberry pancakes in the other. “Yeah?”

“Kim just said the d-word.”

“What?”

Kim stares down at the table, studying the puddle of orange juice. The d-word must be super bad. Super super bad. They’re both going to time-out for sure.

Her dad crosses the kitchen and crouches next to her chair. “Princess, that’s a curse word,” he explains gently. “You shouldn’t use it.”

Kim frowns, her lower lip quivering. “But you do.”

“I shouldn’t.” He leans close and kisses her cheek. He smells like he always does — like soap and dryer sheets and Daddy.

But she furrows her brows, still worried. “Am I gonna go to time-out?”

“No,” he assures her, shaking his head. “Sweetheart, I think this is my fault. I guess you’ve heard me say that word before?”

She nods slowly, hoping her mom won’t be upset. It’s not really her dad’s fault that she said the d-word.

“And you probably said it just now because you didn’t know it was bad, huh?”

Kim nods again, conceding that maybe it’s a tiny bit his fault. But only a little.

“Well, that’s all right,” he says in her favorite voice, the one he uses during bedtime stories. “Just don’t say it again.” He ruffles her bangs with his fingers. “At least until you’re eighteen.”

“’kay,” she agrees. “I won’t.”

Her dad stands and wraps his arms around her mom. “Sorry,” he murmurs against her temple, just loud enough that Kim hears.

“It’s okay.” She kisses his cheek. “Just censor yourself around impressionable young minds every now and then?”

He laughs, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Done.”

Kim swings her legs beneath the table, watching her mom wipe up the last of the juice, happy she’s not mad about the spill or the d-word. She wonders what “impressionable” is.

But then she frowns, thinking hard.

“Daddy, is ‘sunny-bench’ bad, too?”

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