Broken filters

Yesterday, I was lying in pre-op waiting for my knee surgery when the nurse came in to set up my IV. She started in with casual chit-chat, I'm sure to relax me... and the inevitable family questions came up. When she found out I had 7 kids, she asked the dreaded, most ill-worded question... "Are they all real, you know by blood?"

Now my parents raised me to be polite, so I went with the polite answer, but what I really wanted to say was "Well, I'm pretty positive they are all real, and they definitely all bleed. I know because I have take every one of them in for stitches at one point or another, held their hand, let them know I was there for them... because you know, that's what real moms do."

When my polite answer mentioned we had adopted our last one, she then said "Oh, now isn't that nice. What possessed you to do that, when you already had 6 kids?"

Again, I went with the polite answer, but in my head I was saying, "well, actually God possessed me... you see he's this really cool guy who knows what's best for my family, unlike perfect strangers who don't know me or my kids."

And then the inevitible next comment. "Well, you must have a really big house then." And the answer in my head, "Why, yes! Because how could a child possibly grow up happy without a huge house, their own room and lots and lots of toys to play with? A mom and dad who love them are secondary, right?"

Now seriously, I answered each question politely, and we ended up having a nice conversation in which I hope she learned a bit. But it always amazes me the things that come out of people's mouths. Those old brain filters are clogged I guess.