I've definitely suffer from the "open mouth, insert foot" syndrome too!
I'm still embarrassed about this one, nearly three years later . . . We had just moved to an area and I was attending a mom & me playgroup with our DS (who was about 22 mo old at the time) for the first time. This playgroup happened to have a lot of bright children and their slightly pushy, proud parents (very much the hot-house variety). Desperately needing mommy-friends, I was on my very best behavior.
The "Stepford-mommies" organized a game of hide & seek for the toddlers and I eagerly encouraged my DS to participate. He'd never played the game before so I explained the rules to him and sent him off to play. (By the way, I think the game was really a ruse for the Stepford-mommies to show off that their toddlers could count to ten!)
When it was my DS's turn to count, he didn't understand that he was supposed to count TO ten and instead began counting BY tens to 100. The collective jaws of the Stepford-mommies dropped.
Blushing and desperate to fit-in, I stammered on and on about that how my DS was really a fast learner . . . and was way ahead in math . . . and how I had a lot of time to work with my DS, blah blah blah . . . which managed to offend the Stepford-mommies teaching ability (because they, indeed, did spend a lot of time practicing counting), diminished by DS's natural math affinity and made the other toddlers appear stupid. Ugh! Needless to say, I found other mommy-friends and I now embrace the idea that DS may never "blend" with the crowd.
Don't stress the conversation with the librarian. She may turn into a fabulous ally!
