The man in front of us at church introduced himself, asked about Beth-Ellen and Tirzah Mae.
Yes, Beth-Ellen is a month old, Tirzah Mae is three. We’ve got another – eighteen-month-old Louis is in the nursery.
“Oh you’ve been busy.”
It was an innocuous sort of comment, it didn’t feel snarky at all. I was thinking of the busy life that is being the mother of three three and under when I responded.
“But what a fun thing to be busy with.”
The moment the words were out of my mouth, I realized how snarky they must have sounded (and how totally not polite-conversation-at-church.)
But the deed was done and the musicians started singing and all I could do was contemplate what a bummer it was that the one time I managed a great comeback to a snarky comment was when a) the comment wasn’t meant snarkily and b) neither was my response.