That was awkward

Kids say the darndest things right?  Wasn’t that a TV show or something?  Well, it’s pretty funny to hear, even when your kid is the one being brutally honest to strangers.  Some recent awkward moments include:

– After STARRING at a teen boy with pierced ears standing next to us in line at the grocery store, Nia seems to yell, “boys aren’t supposed to wear earrings!”   What am I supposed to say to that? He obviously heard her and doesn’t think it was very funny – he must be thinking what kind of narrow-minded parent are you to teach your child that only girls can were earrings!  Well, it’s hard trying to explain the complexities of life and the freedom of choice to a 3-year-old!  I mean, I want to tell her – trust all police officers, they will help you when you need it – but then the realistic side of me wants to add – but even then some people will only pretend to be police officers to fool you and steal you away from mommy and daddy!  I think she’s smart and all but that would really blow her mind.  I told her (very loudly so the boy would hear) “that’s not true, your uncles have earrings.”  Not sure if that really helped the situation, but I had to try something!

• The next awkward moment happened at the same grocery store on the same day.  The nice older gentleman was helping us take our groceries to the car – he was even loading them up in the trunk for us.  Well, I was trying to make small talk with him but he was really hard to understand because he had such a strong accent.  I would just do the thing most people do – smile and say uh-huh – Nia though – doesn’t yet grasp the concept of politeness and says not once but twice “he talks silly huh?”  All I could think to say is “honey that’s not nice, he’s a nice man.”  Her response?  “But he does TALK SILLY!”
• I’ve saved the worst for last – it’s the worst because it happened in church – as I was taking communion (or the Jesus cookie as Nia would call it).  I was carrying Nia and it was my turn to quietly take the “body of Christ” from the well-dressed, short man at the altar.  As soon as the wafer entered my mouth Nia says, “He’s little huh momma?” All I could do was look the man in the eye and try to apologize with my facial expression.
• I’m now trying to teach Nia about why it’s not nice to say certain things to people – yes it makes for very memorable, awkward moments – but I just would hate for her to shout out something really horrible.  Like when she points at the people who drive those carts with the baskets on them and says “look momma they have a funny buggy.”