Too embarrassing for the blog?

I’m not even sure if I should write this down. That right there should be my cue to stop typing. Step away from the computer. Do not click on Publish. But, some things are just too good to let go.

I mean, I wouldn’t have to tell anyone that this happened. No one would be the wiser. I could keep all my secrets to myself.

But, I have a toddler.
My secrets are not safe.

Have I mentioned that Claire speaks quite clearly?
She has a rather large vocabulary and speaks very clearly for a two year old. This is a mixture of awesome and challenging, all wrapped into one.

She may have the diction of someone far her senior, but she has the innocence of, well, a toddler.

But, as embarrassing as what I’m about to share is, it’s something I don’t want to forget, because it’s really funny. And, if it happened to someone else, it would have been even funnier.

Picture the scene: It’s Friday night. We’re in a nice restaurant. It’s a Chinese restaurant, and a chain you may have heard of. Personally, I think the initials in the first half of the name stand for Pretty Fantastic.

We’re here a bit earlier than the typical dinner crowd, just after 6pm or so, so we get right in. No waiting! We get an awesome half-booth, half-table spot, so Claire can sit on her booster seat on the booth by Daddy and across from me. Perfect.

Claire talks to everyone, and this is fine. She’s in a great mood. She’s chatty. The servers love talking to her.

We order. We eat. We have a great meal. We get the check.

As the server is boxing up our leftovers, Claire picks up her chopsticks. They are a lot like the chopsticks she’s used before, but this time, they have a “training wheel” between the two sticks, and it is actually molded right in with the sticks.

How should I describe them? Well, they look like big tweezers.

Unfortunately, my toddler thinks the same thing, and this is what happens…

She picks them up and says (quite clearly, I might add), “I’m gonna tweeze the big ol’ hair on my chin!” and proceeds to demonstrate!! With the chopsticks!! “There! I got it!” she says proudly, holding her chopsticks so that I can see the results of her pretend tweezing session.

My husband involuntarily let out a loud, “HA!” that he quickly tried to smother with his napkin, and I nearly choked on my water.

Of course, with such a reaction, Claire had to show us again, two or three times how to use the big tweezers on the imaginary hair on her chin. We tried to distract her, and luckily, we got her to stop the demonstration before anyone else noticed. I hope.

Our server had her back turned to us, and she was concentrating on getting the food in the boxes. Luckily, the place had filled enough that there may have been enough white noise to cover my toddler telling anyone within earshot about her momma’s personal hygiene routine.

It will never cease to amaze me what my child remembers and then shares with the world. She is this insatiable creature that is capable of extrapolating the information she soaks up and then regurgitating it in the funniest and most clever, and well, sometimes embarrassing, ways. She has no boundaries. She has no concept of what is polite to say or not say or demonstrate in public.

Then again, I’m writing about this on a public blog, so what does that say about my boundaries? I’ll be the first to admit that having a child makes some of those boundaries blurry. And, that’s okay.

So, my secret is out. I admit it. I have an unruly hair that grows on my chin. Odds are, because I’m diligent, you’ll never see it, but my toddler will still tell you where it was and what I do to remove it.

And, if I’ve learned anything from being the mother of a toddler, it’s this: If my embarrassing stories can’t serve as comedic relief to others (or as a warning? that none of your secrets will be safe from here on out?), I’m in the wrong line of work.

I’ll tell ya one thing though…I’ll never look at a pair of children’s chopsticks the same way again.