being bilingual

I'm bilingual. Fluently bilingual. And no, I don't speak French, Italian, Greek, Russian, Chinese or Spanish {even after 4 years of Espanol in high school}. I'm fluent in Sarcasm. Those who know me know that I tend to be a little sarcastic. Just a little. I really don't know where it stems from. My parents were not sarcastic people, however, both my brother and I are extremely sarcastic. My mother often wonders 'what went wrong' and 'where did that come from'. I just think it's part of my charm. Actually, I sometimes {a lot of times} use sarcasm as a coping mechanism. Sarcasm for survival. I don't know why. I guess instead of charm, it's more like a character flaw.

I can't pinpoint when I began speaking Sarcasm. It was one of those things that just evolved into my normal speech. Most times, people know when I've switched from English to that other language. Most times. My children, for one, usually know when it's sarcasm and they just need to ignore Mommy and weed through what she said for the true underlying message. They are extremely aware when teachers switch to sarcasm during class and they get it. I've had a teacher tell me that Maya is the only one in class who hears the sarcasm, giggles, then ignores it and moves on. She never took her sarcasm seriously like her classmates {oh, I was so proud...} Both of my older children know when it's serious and when it's not. Or at least I thought they did.

Ethan has been this little independent cool person who, apparently, is way to cool to say goodbye to his mother at the bus stop. I don't fight it, but it kind of bothers me. But one day, he got off the bus in the afternoon, ran over to me as I sat on the hill waiting for them, and gave me this huge hug. It totally made my day.

Later on in the evening, I thanked him for the hug. I thanked him for getting off the bus, running across the street and giving me a huge hug hello. He started to argue with me. I thanked him again. Still, he argued with me! Finally, he said to me, "Mommy, are you serious?". Um, YES! Thanks for the hug, buddy. Thanks for greeting me and not ignoring my existence. Thanks for loving me.

His reply? "I thought you were being sarcastic."

oh crap.

I went on to say that I loved how he got off the bus and ran to me and hugged me. I told him it made my day. He beamed a little. I suppose little people like to know that they made someone happy.

I suppose I need to stick to one language for a bit around here. Or at the very least preface my serious comments with 'seriously'. I dunno. I'm pretty sure I'm screwing up my kids. They'll end up in some kind of therapy, rocking back and forth, crying that they never knew when mommy was serious or when she was joking.

*sigh*