"Your Baby Girl Is So Cute..."

"Um, thank you." or "Actually, 'she' is a 'he'" or "Yes, HE is HANDSOME isn't HE" or "Seriously, just because my baby boy is wearing at white shirt with red trim and black graphics, you think he's a girl?!"

I always have such a hard time deciding which response to give. Some people really deserve the last one, but in reality I'm definitely not an aggressive enough person to actually say it, but think it, oh ya!

The other day is was getting my sunglasses worked on when the nice lady there made the mistake that since Caleb was wearing a white onesie with red trim, he must have been a girl. Sure, he's a cute baby and some babies are really hard to tell, but I really don't think Caleb looks all that girly. She went on and on, very obviously thinking he was a she, before I had any chance to correct her. So here I was, a decision had to be made. Should I let her know her mistake and make her feel embarrassed or should I just play along?

This was one of those times that I chose to just play along. It was easy at first to say "thank you" and leave it at that. But she didn't let it go. She continued to talk to Caleb about how "beautiful she is" and continued on to ask Luke if he loved his sister. Thankfully Luke is too young to really understand that she was in fact talking about Caleb, not his real only sister, Sydney, and thus didn't give away my little omission. But it got harder. Usually when I don't make some sort of comment on the accuracy of the person's initial comment it's because it's a passing comment by a passing individual which I won't be in the immediate vicinity long enough to really affect any future communication between me and the said child or another child in which the name or gender would be given away. (wow, I just re-read that and am really not sure if that made sense or not, but if not, too bad, I can't figure out how to make it more clear!)

Anyway, it took her a lot longer to fix my sunglasses and finish everything than I had expected it would. And of course in that time I had to talk to Luke about Caleb and tell him to stop messing with "the baby". Since I had not corrected her at the beginning and let her continue in her mistake, I felt like I had to keep the charade going and not let on that 'she' was actually 'he'. I realized that I could not use Caleb's name and had to use a nondescript term any time that I was referencing Caleb. So he became "the baby". It was pretty funny listening to myself do everything I could to keep up the charade and I'm pretty sure that I did the whole time, but I still wonder if the lady ever realized that 'she' is really 'he'. She didn't let on if she did.

I know some babies really are hard to tell and some parents dress their kids in clothes that may make it difficult to really tell, but still, there are more ways to get around the gender issue if you're not positive of which it is. An simple, "your BABY is so CUTE" works just as well and doesn't leave you or the parent in the position of "idiot".

So, what do you do in a similar situation? Do you correct the stranger right away? Are you gentle about it or painfully obvious? Do you try to subtly communicate with on of your other children about the aforementioned child but using the baby's gender or obvious gender defined name? Or do you just play along and hope that the person leaves you alone?