Down with the kids

Today I took the kids shoe shopping. Little Bro is now the proud owner of his first real shoes. He loved the whole experience - he stomped around the shop in them like he’d just put on some ski boots! Big Sis got some great sandshoes with embroidered butterflies on the side and was mighty happy with them!

So, there we were - happy little family with our bags of shoes (actually empty boxes because the kids wore them home) trundling back towards the car when Big Sis noticed a woman in hijab walking in front of us. Now, Big Sis is really into dressing up at the moment and I observed her scrutinising the woman very closely. I was mentally considering how to explain the woman’s dress to Big Sis.

Unfortunately I hadn’t even composed my story when Big Sis pronounced on the top of her voice - “She looks like a monster!”. What Big Sis meant by that was that she had fabric draped across her head which is exactly what Big Sis does when she dresses up like a monster, of course I’m not sure that’s what the rest of the shopping centre thought she meant!

I was actually frozen on the spot - I mean, what to do? I couldn’t really approach the woman and explain. I thought she heard but how do I explain in 20 words or less? I could envisage some Basil Fawlty type scene where I just succeeded in making us seem more threatening as I tried to explain Big Sis’ comment! It was compounded by the fact that it is very hard to get eye contact with someone in hijab!

Anyway, we slunk out, hoping that she wasn’t on her way to complain to centre management about racist barbs being leveled by 3 year olds. I had a very interesting conversation with Big Sis on the way home, which covered many topics including, religious differences, people looking different for various reasons and voice modulation in public places etc.

Little Bro missed the whole thing - he was sitting happily, first in the stroller and then his car seat, smiling down and occasionally caressing his beloved new shoes!