Even I Put My Foot in My Mouth

I was wheeling Oliver around a baby boutique test-driving umbrella strollers when a young couple, who'd been looking at car seats, diverted their attention to Oliver and made a fuss over him. Remembering how overwhelming it was to figure out all the needed baby gear, especially among the big-ticket items like car seats and strollers, which come with as many add-ons as a luxury car, I offered up Oliver as a test baby to help them with their car seat decision. If you have a real baby to strap into the seat, you get a better idea of how all the straps and buckles work and how it feels to carry the thing.

Despite how conditioned I'd become during my pregnancy to never ever, EVER, guess whether or not a woman is pregnant, I must have felt overconfident in my judgement given the circumstances. I was in a store that sold baby gear, talking with a couple who was buying mattresses and car seats, two items, especially the latter, that people traditionally buy BEFORE the baby's arrival. I could see that the woman, who was wearing a more form-fitting tanktop was clearly pregnant, right? So when I followed up my offer with, "It's so difficult to figure out what works until you have an actual baby to put in this stuff, right?" and dad responded with, "Our babies are at home," I was mortified. Turns out they had triplets - six months ago at that - and the hospital had rejected all three of their hand-me-down car seats, so they had rushed out to buy three car seats at $200 a pop just so they could bring their kids home.

Maybe my standard line of "Beautiful as always!" could have been appropriate here, but since I hadn't actually asked her point-blank when she was due, (now, that would have been beyond mortifying) I opted instead for my other oft-deployed tactic - pretending I'd never just said something so embarrassing and hoped they didn't catch on. Either they believed that I knew that their babies were at now and not inside of her, or that woman has far thicker skin than I have, because no shock or hurt registered on her face.

As hard as I was on everyone else and their stupid comments when I was pregnant, apparently it really can happen to even the best of us.