Scandalous Behavior

Well, once again, I have (innocently!) managed to traumatize my oldest child. I have a LONG history of this. Eleven and a half years ago, I committed the social blunder of actually PEEKING in at my child through the small, glass window in her Mission Friend's classroom door. The room was filled with bright eyed two year olds, sitting in a large circle, listening intently to their teacher. I had only been quietly peeking in a moment when one child with wandering attention, happened to glance up at the window and spot me before I could duck out of sight. He happily waved to me and excitedly called out to Darcy, "Darcy! Your MOM is over there!" My HUMILIATED two year old GLARED at me and then emphatically shooed me away with several quick, ANGRY sweeps of her hand. Then she turned away, shaking her head in undisguised embarrassment and frustration. The OTHER child had been DELIGHTED to see a mommy in the window, but MY child was furious that I would do something so HUMILIATING to her IN FRONT OF HER FRIENDS. She was two years old. I should have known then that the road ahead would be fraught with social blunders that I would be totally OBLIVIOUS of their EMBARRASSING nature until the humiliation was already irrepairably committed!

Case-in-point: Just this past week I AGAIN (for the millionth time) exhibited embarrassing behavior in front of my daughter's friends. Darcy is in both track (pole vaulting...yup, I see broken bones in our future...) and soccer. Track ends at 4:15 (at the school) and Monday through Thursday she must be whisked from the school to the YMCA fields where soccer practice is already in session. Thursday is my evening to car-pool four of the track/soccer girls over to the soccer fields. Last Thursday, I arrived ten minutes early (good mother that I try to be), and, to help the time pass, I pulled out my latest project to work on--a brand new endeavor for me. I was quietly working away when my daughter opened the passenger door and let out a horrified gasp. With a look of consternation on her face she nearly SHOUTED at me, "MOTHER! WHAT are you DOING?" A bit startled, I stated the obvious. To which my daughter implored me earnestly, "Quick, Mom! PUT IT AWAY before MY FRIENDS SEE you DOING THAT!" And she glanced nervously over her shoulder to see how close the other three girls were to coming within sight of our car.

So...what ghastly, humiliatingly embarrassing thing had my daughter witnessed me DOING?....



I can just see it now... my daughter, in her mid-thirties, confiding in a shrink how the spectacle of her mother knitting in public scarred her for life!


(Honestly, if I had realized how knitting would SCANDALIZE my daughter, I would have taken it up a LONG TIME AGO!!! That's how I deal with being a source of continual embarrassment to my child...I have learned to relish the moments! Since I am obviously going to be continually embarrassing her no matter how hard I try NOT to, I long ago figured out that I might as well just "go" with it and derive amusement from it!)