Ungracious

Turns out I am a very ungracious mother. I don't mean to be I just come off that way. People have been telling me for 2 and half years how cute my child is, and I keep responding the wrong way. If I was polite and gracious I would say, thank you very much. But instead, I normally brush his head/move his hair with my hand, and said I know. But not I know, like of course he is, I know, mean can you believe it? Who would ever thought I would have a beautiful child. I said I know, because I can't believe someone else other than me, thinks he is cute. You would think, after 2 and 1/2 years I would get use to people saying he is beautiful, and be able to sound gracious when someone complements him, but I am still caught off guard every time it happens. I never expect people to complement him. Now that he is appears to be a thinking toddler, it has gotten worse. People have started to tell me he is so smart. Well this one, I am always shocked at, so I either say, really? or I know, because he is showing off something I didn't know he could do either, so I'm just as surprised as they are. The other day in church we were sitting next to the elderly couple, and Jo went through an alphabet book, and told his dad every letter of the alphabet. The older man, said he is so smart, and I said I know, sort of giggling, because I was more shocked than the man that he knew the alphabet, last time Jo told me, he only knew about a third of the letters. I'm starting to realize that when someone complements my child, they are complementing me, but in my mind, the complement has nothing to do with me, I didn't have anything to do with my son being smart or beautiful, he was just born that way I guess. I can assure anyone that I am not the one that made him smart. (I know beautiful is girly sounding, but older people always tell me he is beautiful, I guess it use to be normal for boys to be beautiful. Plus I personally do think he is a beautiful child, I don't think beautiful is a female specific term.)