Attack of the poisoned potatoes

I can be a pretty sarcastic person. I’m not a mean sarcastic person, necessarily, but I love a punny exchange and quick, light-hearted banter. I’m very careful not to swear in mixed company, but I haven’t quite figured out how to turn off my sarcasm when around small children.

Small children don’t get sarcasm, and why should they? Kudos to them for actually understanding the words that are being said let alone the nuances of sarcasm. In fact, I know some adults that are still learning.

One of my sisters still looks at me sideways for making one of her boys cry at the Christmas Dinner table last year. We were all sitting around my parents’ table, and because there were so many of us there, we were all jammed in pretty tightly. It was hard to get up from the table, so my mom had actually made two dishes of certain popular items, so that we didn’t have to pass around the hot dishes and/or get up from our place to get another serving.

So, we’re all sitting there, shoveling food into our mouths, laughing and having a good ol’ time. (Meals at my parents’ house are far from quiet.) My brother-in-law asks me if I could pass the potato casserole. Neither he nor I realized that there was one on our side of the table, so I asked Mom to pass the potatoes. She tells us that she’s not going to, because there is one down there by us. So, I look at my brother-in-law and say, “She won’t give them to me. The potatoes must be poisoned. We need to eat these.” Everyone laughed, and we went on shoveling food in our mouths.

A few minutes later, my sister notices that her three-year old is really quiet, and he’s crying. “What’s wrong?” she asks. “I don’t want Daddy to die!” he said. “Why would Daddy die?” my sister asks. “Because the potatoes are poisoned, and I saw him eat them!!”

“Oh no! No, the potatoes aren’t poisoned, even though your aunt, one of those trusted adults, said they were.” Uhhh…oops!

So, what does this have to do with anything? Well, it’s been seven months, and I’m still having trouble with turning the sarcasm off. The other night, I found a squished raisin on Claire’s bib, and I said, “Oh! What is that? A bug!?” I know it’s not a bug. I’ve jokingly called raisins bugs for years. I realized my mistake as soon as I heard myself say it. It all happened in slow motion, and I tried to suck that word back into my mouth, but it was too late.

Great. Getting Claire to eat raisins is already an intricate game, and now you’ve referred to them as bugs! Good goin’, Momma.

Claire seemed a little confused, and handed it to me like it was a bug. Immediately, I tried to distract her with some other things, so hopefully Momma’s little comment is forgotten.

I know I need to try my hardest to behave from here on out. And, if I don’t succeed, my daughter will be the only child in Kindergarten that makes the other kids cry with her sarcastic remarks.