Shoulda seen this coming...

Well, I've had my first public moment of utter embarassment, thanks to LB.  Sure, he's screeched and thrown fits and all, but that stuff I can handle.  Sorta.  This one, though, threw me for a loop, and I still have no idea if my reaction was appropriate, or what I should have done, or if I can ever show my face in the commissary again.

I took the boys grocery shopping with me.  I was only on the second aisle, going through my very lengthy list, when LB saw two girls in a cart next to him.  He said hi and started to say something rather unintelligible.  Pretty much the norm.  However, as I passed them, LB looked straight at one of the girls and asked "Are you a spider?"

I couldn't figure out why in the world he would ask someone if they were a spider.  I mean, it's not like she was dressed up or anything.  Then, omg, it hit me.  The little girl had her black hair up in tiny dreads, and he thought they looked like spider legs.  Oh dear god, someone please hit me with a bus....

"Are you a spider??" he asked again, much louder.  I tried to hurry along, but the swarm of old people crowd was moving oh-so-slowly.  He shouted, "Are you a spider????" LB, shut up, shut up, shut up!

Oh god, what do I do??  I didn't want to get beat down for something completely offensive my kid said.  So, I played dumb, sort of, and said, "What are you talking about?  I think you're the spider, Spiderman."  That totally switched his attention from the little girl to pretending to be Spiderman.

Whew.

But seriously, how am I supposed to explain race to a two year old?  How is he going to understand that there are many different people out there, and it's not polite to comment on their appearance like that?  I didn't think he would, which is why I went the distraction route.  But I sure as hell wanted to just stick my head up a turkey's ass.  I'm sure it would have been more pleasant.