Sunday, June 24, 2012

Literally

We were at a restaurant recently when a group of little people came and sat at the table right next to us. Meg, having never seen little people before, was curious; and because she was curious, was staring. I could almost see the thought bubbles above her head. Were these kids? If so, where were their parents? And why were they acting like parents to some of the kids with them? 


While I understood her curiosity, and I wanted to answer her questions, I also did NOT want to be the person with the ill mannered, staring child. So, I leaned over to her and very quietly said "Meggo, it's not polite to look at people when they may not want you looking at them. Do you understand?" She nodded, and I assumed I had handled the situation and could explain to her about little people later. I went back to my dinner and talking to others at the table. Then Ryan nudged me, and inclined his head towards Meg. 


She was eating with her eyes closed. 


If she happened to open them, say to figure out exactly where something was on her plate, she would clap her hands over her eyes if she happened to catch sight of the little people at the table next to us. Turns out that while I thought I said "please don't stare," Meg heard "don't look at them at all." As they were directly in her line of sight, the only thing to do was to close her eyes. 


I should have known to pick my words more carefully, since every word that comes out of anyone's mouth right now is taken as the total, unabashed truth to Meg. The other day when her Dad told her to hold a baseball bat higher, meaning choke up on it, she instead waved it above her head like she was fighting off birds of prey. When Luke and his friends were screaming they were "taking over the ship" as they played on the jungle gym in my mom's backyard Meg became distraught because she assumed it meant she could never get to play there again. 


And don't even get me started on how she doesn't get sarcasm. 


I guess it was about the age of five when Luke stopped being so literal and started getting the "gist" of things. That means we have about two more years of having to explicitly explain everything. 


After all, we don't want her going through life with her eyes closed. 

6 comments:

Riot Kitty said...

My parents just about died when I saw the first African-American person in our very, very pale town in Minnesota, because I thought they had painted themselves brown. (My family is a Caucasian/Native American mix and we range from pink to yellow.) My parents were very apologetic and luckily they were very nice about it.

LL Cool Joe said...

That's kinda cute that she really tried hard not to stare or look though. I'm not sure many kids of that age would have done that. :)

Mandy_Fish said...

That is adorable.

My eight-year-old son still doesn't get irony. Which is a challenge, because my husband and I are so sarcastic. We end up having to explain, "We're just joking" a lot.

Amanda said...

I totally blame you for Luke's remarkable use of sarcasm.

Anonymous said...

The sarcasm will be flowing from her soon enough. There is no doubt that she will be as snarky and sarcastic as her lovely Mother.

G. B. Miller said...

Pretty cool that Meg has a good grasp of what Mom says most of the time.

Enjoy it while it lasts. :D