Uhhhhh...

Twice today I had parental fumbles. Fumbling is not unusual, but it steams me when it could have been prevented. The kids are old enough to catch me bumbling with "Errrr, uhhhh, umm" and then they have the audacity to laugh. Laughing at wise mommy...the nerve!

When I picked the guys up from art class, I was informed that a 'big kid' had made some nasty comments about Ella's hand. I then got some details on exactly what happened from Eli. He is the informant of the family, but confuses his details and Everett generally ends up talking over Eli with the truth. I was buckling everyone into the van when Eli said, "This big kid, he's like 10 or something, said Holy Cow to Ella's hand. Then he said it was a freaky hand and Ms. T had to get him in trouble."

Sigh. I could have filed away a perfect speech for this. In my free time I should start coming up with answers to questions that I can't shouldn't respond to on the fly. The following is the perfect example of what happens when I try to think while buckling...

"WHAT IN THE WORLD? Well...hmmm, that wasn't very nice of him, was it?" Ella was welling up with tears looking at me during Eli's rehearsal of the dialogue.

"Okay, you know what I think...I think that kid is a...big dumb dumb. I mean it. I think...well, I think he's stupid. Yeah, he's stupid." Now, I'm holding Ella's chin and looking in her eyes (and I've forgotten what a tried and true 'good' mom would do). "You listen to me, when some nasty kid says something ugly like that to you, if I'm not around to remind you, you just think, 'My mom tells me you are stupid.' Say it with me. He's stupid. He's stupid. He's a stupid boy to say something so mean. Honestly, God made all of us different, just look around our van! It's sad that that boy isn't bright enough to see that God made each of us special and it's wonderful that he made you different than everyone else. He has a reason for each of us to be the way we are. So I'm telling you to think it to yourself, 'Well, my mom thinks you are stupid.' "

Yeah, the only thing is...I don't let my kids says things like stupid and dumb. I'm also thinking there might be some fist fights later on when my little girl VERBALLY passes on my "stupid" comment. Good thing she has three brothers.

Then in the van that night, Eli asked how babies got out of their mommy's bellies. Always trying to put off the inevitable, Seth told him that it was just a little too late at night to start that discussion. That prompted a line of questioning until Seth told him that women have an invisible zipper inside their stomachs that only babies can operate.

I'm thinking that this is probably not a good solution. I leaned over and said that maybe he should give them a better answer--like the truth. He gawked. Then Everett said, "No, really, how do they get out of there? Do they burst out, what happens?" We just realized (we are really slow) that Everett hears everything we say when we are in the van.

So I told them. I told them the absolute truth. Ella and Sally were stuck on udders and milk and cows so the conversation quickly turned to 'why don't horses have udders'. Thankfully. Since I was getting a little...ahem...flustered. They now have heard the truth. Not the whole truth. I will try to remember to tell them that they cannot share this new found knowledge with the general populace at church. I'll probably forget though, so if my kids hang out with your kids, you might just want to go ahead and have 'that discussion'. Not the whole discussion! Please, spare me those questions! I need another 10 years to think about what to say. Or I can hand it over to Seth, "There's this stork..."