Social Faux Pas

Apparently there are social lessons I need to teach James, now that he talks to everybody. I expected things like this to pop up. Kids say whatever. Like the other day at Costco, a sweet old lady in a electric wheelchair had to stop and admire our cute little boys. She asked James if he was being good, and he sheepishly said, "Do your legs not work? Are they broken?" She didn't hear him and I pulled him aside and whispered to him that she has a hard time walking, but she's ok. Being satisfied, he didn't ask her again and we moved on. Today... well, something else was said today.

I had a book on hold at the library and needed to return our books, which were due at the end of the week. We got my book and we went to the children section, where they played with the puppets and giant horse and I perused the books. There was a mom (who was rather put together, kind of jealous) and her 7ish-9 year old daughter. The daughter was really nice and played with the boys. Her mom sat down at the little table, where there is a basket of tiles to match and play with. The daughter joined her, so of course James had to follow his new friend. He sat down, and Gavin quickly followed. James decided he wasn't close enough to his new friend and too close to Gavin, so he scooted his chair in between new friend and her mom. I was done, so just kind of hovered around them. James excitedly looked up at me and said, "Mommy! Look, I have a new friend!!" I have been teaching James that when he makes new friends to ask them their names, so I asked him what her name was. He asked her. Her name was Ava. They kept playing and he asked her again what her name was. She giggled and said, "It's Ava! I already told you!" She thought it was cute he asked her again. Then, for some reason, this is the next question he asks: "Do you have a daddy??" What?? Ava replied, "No. My daddy died... (looking at mom) right, Mom?" WHAT?? Of course James asks this of the sweet little girl whose daddy is dead!! The mom took it in stride, though I could tell it stung a little, and said, "Yes, honey..." I could not believe it. He then proceeded to say, "Oh... your daddy is dead... What was his name?" I wanted to just tell him to stop talking about her deceased father, but I was just stammering and trying to say the right thing. Ava said, "His name was Andy". I quickly muttered, "I'm sorry... James, we need to get going." Yeah, I know I didn't handle this well. My social awkwardness was all too present, but I did not expect him to ask that random question. We did not leave right away due to boys not wanting to leave, but we finally did. Once in the car, I let James know that maybe we shouldn't ask those kind of questions to people we are just meeting. We need to ask questions more like - what is your favorite color?- what do you like to play? etc. 

Oooohhhh... what luck we had today. He's learning, which means we're learning. This is going to be fun!