08 May 2009

Awkward moments, Vol. 1

As an antidote to all those ubiquitous Precious Moments things, here are a few of the most Awkward Moments my children have seen fit to drag me into, just in the past week and a half.

Please note that while I include the word "loudly" in all three entries, I'm sure you know I had no need to mention it even once.

1. While enduring an excessively long checkout process at the store, my 2-year-old daughter M- loudly pointed out that supermodel Giselle Bunchen, posing effectively in the nude on the cover of this month's Vanity Fair, had no shirt on, before speculating that "the lady [was] going to take a shower, probably," and then following up in graphic detail with all the steps she would be taking next.

2. Walking by a woman carrying her child with a beautiful (and probably very expensive) head of cornrows, M- and her 5-year-old brother D- said hi, each referring to the child as a different sex (due to this apparently unfamiliar hairstyle and ambiguous clothing colors), and then they began loudly debating whether it was a boy or a girl, including the heretofore uncharted territory of a "boy-girl".*

3. Just days before the normally large Immigration Rally here in Chicago, and in the midst of all this swine flu nonsense, a Hispanic busboy** began clearing our table while we were gathering up our supplies to leave a local pizza pub, and the kids coincidentally decided to start very loudly chanting the refrain from one of their recent favorite books (Gotta Go by Sam Swope): "Gotta go to Mexico!!"

Luckily for us, neither of them were frowning or pointing at the time they issued this grammatically ambiguous statement/command.



* For the record, I had been 99% sure it was a girl until I heard these two arguing. I don't feel too badly about this uncertainty, given the number of times D- was misidentified as a girl in his first 2 years of life, and the handful of times M- was as a boy, but if anyone ever thought either was a boy-girl/girl-boy, they had the decency to keep it to themselves.

** Seems a demeaning job title, considering that the guy is at least 40. But "Busman" just sounds like a really, really low-budget superhero. Like Batman if he wasn't a billionaire. Guy's gotta get around
somehow, right?

15 comments:

Kat said...

My best friend is a hair stylist at the base barber shop and we occasionally will pop in to say hi. Well she was doing the hair of a LADY with really short hair and my 5 year old kept referring to her as a him. I wanted to die.

Another Suburban Mom said...

Kids can really embarass the crap out of you. I was at Karate when Princess Persistent pointed to one of the bald dads and said VERY LOUDLY: "Mom that man has no hair!"

Thankfully the dad laughed nicely about it.

Bookworm said...

OMG that is so funny. Well, funny for us. No doubt at the time you wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Yep, I remember those days.

Once, when my son was small, maybe 4 years old or so (he's 26 now!). We were in a restaurant with a large group of family members (about 14 of us or so). Right in the middle of brunch, my son asked in a very loud voice (of course): "Mommy, what are breasts for?" Yes, the entire restaurant heard him, in addition to the various aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents that were there. *sigh*.

Your only hope is that one day, their children will embarrass the shit out of them and you will laugh your ass off. LOL

Renee said...

I'm so glad to be back at LiteralDan. That vacation was hell. And I could have totally missed out on BusMan.

Momo Fali said...

Right. You know my son mistook two Muslim women's headscarves as bandannas and called them "pirates"? I feel your pain.

Christy said...

You're right. BusMan? Probably not appropriate...I remember that when my daughter was little any person that we passed who happened to be smoking a cigarette, holding a cigarette, or exhaling in freezing temperatures would be treated to a very loud chorus of, "that GUY has a smoke-ah! ("smoker" meaning cigarette) He's gonna DIE!

Fun times, for sure.

blissfully caffeinated said...

Oh my God, I'm laughing so hard right now and it's because I FEEL YOUR PAIN.

My kids are constantly engaging in inappropriate and embarrassing debates and/or monologues in public. And then when I try to shush them on the sly they start yelling, "Why Mommy?!! Why do we have to stop talking about that lady in the wheelchair?!!!

The boy/girl debate has happened more than once. It makes me want to die every time.

Anonymous said...

I cannot wait to see what your daughter says when her vocab increases even more!

Andrea's Sweet Life said...

BUSMAN! I just spewed wine all over my computer screen.

THANKS, LiteralDan.

Mrs4444 said...

Wow! That's hilarious. For me, of course; not for you :) Thanks!

Heather Dugan (Footsteps) said...

My 92-year old grandma STILL remembers my now 17-year old son pointing at a liver-spotted man in a restaurant and calling him a cheetah. Very loudly. The thing is... until your kid does something like that, there's really no way to tell them NOT to!

Zip n Tizzy said...

All it takes is an audience!

LiteralDan said...

Never fear... whenever* you need him, Busman will find you!


-----
* Provided you live within 2 miles of a bus stop, or 1 mile from the late-night line if you need him after 10:30.

Unless you live in a bad neighborhood... then you'll need to wait at a Starbucks or something somewhere on the right side of the tracks.

dead beat daddy-o said...

I'd love to have a little small talk in the checkout line. Once I get to that point in the shopping process, my (nearly) two-year-old has had it and acts accordingly.

Laugh, Mom said...

My nine year old told my six year old that he didn't need to worry because swine flu only kills Mexicans.