Sticker Shock!

This morning I took Hunter to school. There is always a line of cars for drop-off and pick-up. We were behind an old silver truck with a topper on the back. The back window had several stickers. As I glanced at the stickers I fervently hoped the line would move fast and I tried to keep Hunter busy with questions about everything and nothing. Then it happened. "Mom, why does that car have a sticker that says Mean People Suck?" I told him that some people feel that way and think it is okay to say that. He should not use the word "suck" maybe use "stink" instead. My efforts to distract him didn't work and after a few attempts he figured out the matching sticker to the first one. My mind had been scrambling for the answer to his next question that I knew was coming... "Mom, what does Nice People Swallow mean?" I took a deep breath and forged ahead.. "Mean People Stink because they say and do mean things and get angry and don't think about hurting people's feelings. Nice People Swallow their anger and mean things they might want to say or do so they won't hurt people's feelings." Wow, that was close!
We work so hard to teach them to read. I am always telling him to sound words out and focus on what he is reading. He has become very good at figuring words out. There are few things you can spell that he won't figure out what it is. Brian realized over the weekend that the trick of spelling words you don't want to say in front of him doesn't work anymore. I finished talking to someone on the phone quite a while back and Hunter asked me if the person I was talking to could read. I told him of course they could. He then asked me.. "then why did you have to spell out SEX for her?" Little ears hear more than you think they do! There was a time I would have put those stickers on my car. I would not have given a thought about a child parked behind me asking his mother what they meant. It gave a whole new meaning to the term "sticker shock"!