EMBARASSING

We have a toucher. A child who knows no boundaries, no awareness of personal space. Bella, also known as Jelly Belly. It's actually one of the things I love about her. But it also is the cause of many embarassing moments. Here's a real doozy:

Phoenix is a large enough city that you'd think we would have had a mass transportation system long ago. But it's only been a few short years since we were introduced to the Light Rail. What excitement this drummed up! Everyone was clammering to take a ride on the Light Rail. We decided to jump on the bandwagon......er, Light Rail. We got on, stroller and all, with friends of ours and decided to ride it all the way to downtown Phoenix to watch the Christmas Light Parade. All of the kids were excited. And I was too. Until I realized that there were 20 stops until our final destination. At each stop a whole slew of people came on and the seats were quickly filling up until there wasn't even standing room. We were all packed in like sardines complete with intermittent strange odors. I was getting more claustrophobic by the minute.

Enter my touchy-feely child, B. She is so affectionate, friendly, fascinated and fearless all at once. A woman with a belly like a bowl full of jelly in a really tight shirt gets on at about stop 4. (No judgment....I, too, have a belly like a bowl full of jelly). Each stop, she got closer and closer to us. Well, Miss B immediately noticed that this woman had some kind of mole that was poking through the fabric of her shirt. It is now like slow motion playback in my mind. I can see the expression change to wonderment on B's face as she notices this mole and reaches her arm out. It's like when you have a dream where you are trying to run and can't move your feet or get anywhere. I am trying to grab her arm, but I just can't do it. She touches the mole but doesn't stop there. She keeps her finger on it, rubbing back and forth trying to determine just what it is. Our friends watched the whole thing and are suffering uncontrollable laughter. The funniest part was that the woman didn't even flinch. It's as if she had no feeling in that area whatsoever. Everyone, but this woman who was being groped by a 3-year-old, watched this go down. Then B says, "Eeeeww....Mama, what is that??" I could feel my face get hot and a pit in my stomach. (Or was it the claustrophobia?) I finally snapped out of my dream-like stupor and distracted her with something else.

We vowed to never ride again.