Old Chat With the Baby Bean

So, today I was talking to K Bean about people. Like 'Girl People' and 'Boy People' and 'Grand Pa' or 'Grand Ma People.' It reminded me of a hilarious conversation we had when we were camping. We were walking down the trail to the river ahead of the rest of the crew because I was hella pregers and slow and she was hella short and moved fast but her steps were very slow. As we walked (she scampered, I waddled
= "we walked") down the hill we had to pull over a few times to let people pass. At one point we pulled over for one of our camp ground neighbors.

"K Bean- lets get out of the way."
"K. tra lala laaa"

She turned around to look at who was behind us, turned back to me and said
"Mommy, is that a black guy?"

All I could do to keep from laughing was say
"Yes, I suppose it is."

Well, Bean's "Black Guy" walked past us laughing so hard I thought he was gonna trip over his feet and crash into us! I almost said sorry, but thought that would only make it weirder but he seamed to think it was really funny and smiled and said hi.

The cool thing was that he and they others at his camp hadn't been very friendly to us before that exchange, but after that, the whole group was friendly and pretty cool.

I guess the moral of the story is that it isn't a big deal. Little kids are curious creatures who will ask difficult and awkward questions. It is up to us as their teachers to always respond with humor and honesty.

And besides what was I supposed to say, No?