A huge Miscommunicaton....

So M recently started saying a word that just shocked me.  For the life of me I couldn't figure out where she heard this word.  Neither my husband nor myself use this word and she is with me 24/7.  The word of the week was the slang (not nice word) that some people use instead of saying mentally handicapped...or so I thought this was what she was saying.  So, I calmly told her that this was not a nice word and that it hurts people's feelings.  

A week passes and we haven't heard that word in awhile.   We were getting ready to have lunch so I asked her, "What would you like to have for lunch, sweetheart?".  She answered and I started to make lunch.  She then comes up to me and asks, "Mommy I'm a r#t#rd? I said, "no, no baby you are a amazing.  You are not that word".  Her asking that confused me more, because again we do not use that word and we do not have cable so she did not hear it on TV.  The only thing I could think of is maybe her 4 year old cousin picked it up from school or something (he comes over once a week).  So I asked my sister and she said she had not heard him say that.

The confusion continues until a few days later when M comes up to me and asks, "Mom you call me r#tard?"   I said, "No, never baby, I would never say that to you".  Just then I realized she was not saying r#tard, she was saying SWEETHEART (but it was seriously coming out r#tard).  I felt so awful, what a horrible mom?!  For a week and a half my 2 year old princess has been thinking I call her a not so nice name by calling her sweetheart.  I was so relieved that she was not saying that word.  I have since corrected me telling her that Sweetheart is a bad name and we are currently working on pronunciation.