Seriously, the way people talk to children drives me nuts, and ds5 nuts as well. He hates being spoken down to.
We had a good one at Thanksgiving last year ... we were at my step-mother's mother's house for the holiday. I know the family well from growing up, but we live out of state now and they see B only rarely.
They have a family tradition of playing games for Thanksgiving, typically mini-golf and peanut toss. B went to take his turn at peanut toss; there were 4 silver bowls of various sizes, each labeled with a different point value (5, 10, 20, 40). B took his turn, tossing peanuts, and was adding them up as he went along: "5! 15! 25! 45!!!" And when his turn was over, he stayed and added for other people as they tossed. People were blown away and commenting right and left; it was a little awkward for me, especially because it really wasn't a big deal for B.
The kicker, though, was when my aunt's new husband (they have two boys, ages 11 and 8) came up to me afterward and said, "Now really, how did you get him to do that?" Excuse me? I told him I didn't do anything, that's just the way B is. I got the feeling the guy didn't believe me.
On our recent trip to Disney, he also got lots of weird looks ... we met a little girl on one bus who I would bet my life is EG or, more likely, PG. She and Benj sat and chatted for a good 20 minutes; her mother and I were dying! My step-mother just looked kind of irritated, tee hee.
