We have all heard the expression, “kids say the darndest things,” but it isn’t until your own child humiliates you that you take these words to heart. As I have mentioned before, I am beginning to believe that life was easier before Allyson could communicate with intelligible words. Usually, when Ally says something that I find to be embarrassing, I pretend she actually said something different. For instance, Ally once ran up to a man not too much older than I who happened to have a beard (like my dad), and called him paw paw. Fortunately, at the time, her words were not very clear, so I simply explained that she said baw baw in reference to his facial hair, and he seemed to buy it without taking offense to being told that she thought he was the same age as my dad.
I can no longer do this, as most of her words are now clear as day, which was made evident today. On our way home from the gym, we stopped at Publix to get milk. Because we had been at the gym for a while, Ally repeatedly told me how hungry she was as soon as we got in the car. Being the good mother that I am, I bribed her and told her that if she was good while we were in Publix I would get her a treat at the register. Thankfully, she upheld her end of the deal, and when we got to the front of the store, I picked out a snack for her. I was happy to see that right by the register there was a 100 calorie pack of chocolate covered pretzels. I assumed this would be a hit, because we eat yogurt covered pretzels regularly for a treat. I walked up to the very sweet black (this will be important to the story in a moment) girl at the register and handed her the pretzels to scan so I could give them to Ally. She immediately gave them back to me, and I handed them to Ally and told her to tell the girl “thank you.” Ally looked herl right in the eyes and said “No black one! I want a white one!” (Remember the color of the cashier’s skin). I had no idea where this came from, as Ally has never seemed to notice a difference in skin color, much less express it! Then it dawned on me that Ally was not talking about the cashier’s color, she was talking about the color of the pretzel, which was chocolate and not yogurt. Once the color returned to my face, I quickly explained to the cashier that we were not teaching our 2-year-old prejudicial behaviors, but instead, she was just a picky eater.