A Little Too Gunshy

I hope to have pictures from our vacation to share soon, but until then, I thought I'd share a story from our vacation.

Both kids are going through that lovely stage right now during which they blurt out their observations about the world around them before censoring them (because, hey, they just haven't learned to censor, yet). I, for example, have been informed more than once recently that I have a big butt and belly. I don't mind that so much as when the observations start branching out to people outside our immediate family.

We were at a restaurant recently, and David made one such observation. A man wearing ill-fitting clothes passed our table, and David cheerfully exclaimed "Someone has the biggest belly of all!" Thankfully, the man didn't seem to hear him, but we had a little talk about how it's not nice to talk about how people look.

Leah, as I mentioned, is going through the same thing. On our way to NJ she said, at the top of her voice, "Ewww, cigarettes!" as we passed a man smoking at a rest stop. I don't know how he couldn't have heard her. Eek! So, I again took this as a teaching opportunity and explained that, yes, cigarettes are yucky, but that it was rude to talk about it in front of people who are smoking. I explained that while I hoped that she would never choose to smoke because cigarettes are unhealthy, sometimes people do choose to use cigarettes and that we shouldn't point out unhealthy choices that people make. On another occasion, we were in a store, and Leah noticed a young man dressed in some traditional Middle Eastern clothing. We were far enough away that he didn't hear her, but she said "That boy is dressed silly." Again, I explained that people all over the world dress differently and that it wasn't nice to talk about how people dress.

It is no surprise that I was a bit exasperated when we were sitting at a restaurant on the way to NJ and Leah made another loud and rude observation. She said, "There's a girl over there with a crazy tattoo on her face!" Jeff and I were both seated so that we were unable to see said girl, but we quickly shushed Leah and reminded her that it wasn't nice to talk about how people look. In my mind I was envisioning a young woman with a lot of body art on her face. A couple of more times throughout the meal Leah said things like "There's the girl with the crazy tattoo again." I was starting to get really frustrated that Leah just couldn't seem to drop the subject!

We went on to finish our meal, and as we got up Leah said loudly AGAIN "There's the girl with the tattoo!" As I started to remind Leah again not to talk about how people look, I looked over where she was pointing. It turns out that the whole time she'd been talking about a little girl, probably about 7 years old, with her face painted! I felt just a bit sheepish. I still think it was important to remind Leah not to talk about the way people look, but I also see the importance of having all of the facts instead of making assumptions. Honestly, I had cut her off each time she was trying to tell me about the girl because of the assumptions I had made. Had I just let her explain a little more, we probably could've avoided having multiple outbursts about it.

That's the great thing about parenting, both the parent and child can learn from the experience. ;-)