Empty Aisles and Body Crabs

Children simply don't care. They don't care if the person they are talking to is famous or not.  No status impresses them.  I'm sure I can learn a lot from a child.

However, I'd like to think my child can learn a lot from me.  Like discerning what is material for public discussion and what is better when discussed at home.  Take body crabs, for example.

My son isn't always the quietest.  Not at home and, unfortunately, not always in public.  I generally don’t mind his happy holler “I’m a trash man!” when he’s hanging onto the side of the cart in the grocery store.  

But I did cringe when he said in his ‘trash man voice': “Mommy, what are body crabs?”

I have my dad’s sense of humor to thank for that one.  Whenever he has an inexplicable itch on his back, Dad mutters something about his body crabs acting up.  My son picked up on that and apparently the phrase stewed around in the back of his mind for a couple of months until it got the better of him and he just had to ask…in the grocery store. 

I looked around carefully, hoping no one else heard, and tried a brief answer in my softest, whispery voice, “They make you itch.”

Not only was his volume completely unaffected by my whispered answer but he was as curious as ever.  “What did you say?  What are body crabs?”

I cringed the second time, leaned in a bit closer and tried my cathedral hush again.  “They make you itch.”  Then, in a brave attempt of changing the subject, I said briskly, “Okay, Son, are you ready?  Hold on tight.”

He gripped the side of the cart and said, “Oh, they make you itch, Mommy?  Oh.”

Did I imagine things, or did I just get an aisle all to myself?

Okay, so maybe I'm too hard on the little guy.  He's a child, after all. 

Or maybe I'm too hard on him because chances are I do the same thing.  No, I'm too 'up on things' to talk about body crabs in the cereal aisle.  But I'm not too old to hang onto the grown-up side of the cart and say things to an acquaintance that are ill-timed or poorly spoken.   

There is Someone, though, giving me direction in His cathedral whisper if I'll only stop to listen; Someone who can spare me the agony of regrets over my speech...and the chances of an aisle emptying out because of my words.  

Now that I think of it, my son really can learn a few things from me (no more body crab questions, please!), but at the same time, I'm learning an awful lot by being his mom.