If you don't have anything nice to say.....

So it’s awesome to have little people, little people that love you and feel so comfortable with you that they spout out whatever is in their tiny little, not able to filter brains……..  well actually it’s not that awesome really.

I’ve realised as my kids get older I find myself standing ‘on the sidelines’ of conversations,  listening to them commune with elderly relatives / people you used to work with / other parents / people you currently work with, just holding my breath and hoping they know what to say or are eloquent enough not come off sounding like loserville snot nosed bratty aresholes!

Unfortunately for me my kids pick the times when I think they need to shine to actually revert to rudimentary thought and action (they’re so much smarter at home…..)

I give you this example off the top of my head;

Shit day at work – pick up Charlie after school and take him to drama class ( I know, right! High brow much?), then pick up Lucy and dash back into work to wrestle with the scanner that refused to allow me to scan that 68 page document that must be emailed by 5pm on the same day.

Panicked  stress pants is an understatement to how I’m feeling.  Working part time somehow means you have this over abundant work ethic (must prove this job sharing caper is worth it….. I’m working so hard man you can’t even believe I’m only part time, yeah?).  So blinded by the need to prove I’m committed I rush in and leave the previously mentioned kid with the boss (mistake…….)

 My two senior managers dote on her, because a) she’s hella cute and b) it’s Friday afternoon and they can’t be fucked doing anything else.

Do you know what I get for my earnest, think about work first, conscientious ways?  This;

‘My Mum does really loud pop offs, but not as smelly as Dads’

When they told me about it all I heard was silence apart from the sound of a distant cricket, oh and  yeah, them snorting. 

I was fucking mortified.  Really?????  Really????  We practice your fucking ballet movements and sing the god damn ABC song 24 bloody 7 but you come out with that?

What is the point of having kids if they can’t reflect how awesome you think you want to be?

Have I lived it down?  No.

Do I take my kids to work anymore? No.  (actually that’s not true, sometimes I need to sit them there for a bit before their grandparents pick them up because the self-centred child carer’s won’t take them with that ‘weepy eye’….)

I guess kids say what you, as an adult, really want to.  That is before we get all narky and teach them what’s rude and what’s best left unsaid until you get home from the supermarket.  Why do we do that to them?  Is it because we want them to fit in with society or is it because we don’t want to be embarrassed by them?  Are we all just polite and silent because our parents didn’t want to be embarrassed by us?

Neither of them are immune to these outbursts of honesty, my six year old proved his inability to mentally check oneself before speaking when he loudly and confidently proclaimed to his younger sister;

 ‘That’s what will happen to you if you continue to not eat your vegetables’

He was pointing to a short statured person ( by that I mean a midget, dwarf, tiny person – what’s the right term these days?).  Embarrassed? Yes.  But also a little proud because he listened to what Husband and I had constantly pleaded with him about for the past few years, plus his sentence construct was undeniably awesome and he saw what he thought was action and effect; point and case (well sort of…)

I realy don’t want to stifle their amazing ability to draw completely left field parallels between the remarkable lessons their father and I teach them with the lessons of the real world.  They’re funny and have an amazing innocence and resonance about them.  But there is of course a point where I have to draw the line with these honest proclamations and this is it;

In the bathroom, my  darling 3 year old daughter cannot contain her excitement,  she is totally uber thrilled after seeing me in leggings and a singlet (this will be an overshare), she squeals in delight whilst jumping around and says;

 ‘There’s a baby in your tummy, I’m going to be a big sister!’

As if the whole ‘pop off’ incident wasn’t enough, I’m imagining her sharing this with the whole child care centre.

Firstly, I am not pregnant.  Secondly, if anyone else had said this to me it would have been a swift ‘fuck you’, and eye gouge,  but being that she’s who she is, well I love her enthusiasm and am happy to know that if the ‘accidental’ baby comes along she’ll be fine with it.

This was however, the moment I declared I would return to the gym forever and would also introduce the term ‘tact’ into any future teachings that happen within this household.

It’s so bloody hard shaping the considerate leaders of tomorrow……