Color Coding

Max has spent the last month learning about colors at school. He was already very good at recognizing them, but the last several weeks really drove them home.

Today we were swimming when Max spotted someone walking in. "Who's that black girl Mama?” he asked in his normal need to know everything tone.

"I don't know," was my response hoping the older woman had not heard the previous comment.

He watched as she came in and settled into her lounge chair. Then he looked right at her and asked, "Hey black girl, what are you doing?"

From the look on her face I could see that she was not amused...at all. I thought of all the things I could say; he's learning his colors, he didn't mean anything, I have an adopted brother from Nigeria, it's just the way he distinguishes differences. None of them seemed like they would satisfy her glare.

How can you explain to a 2 year old why that's not something that you can really say? Isn't it a shame that I feel like I should? If something similar happened to me, I would have laughed and answered the kid. Interesting, isn't it.