Here's Betsy of Fluffy Windover's Diary with this week's Toddler Thursday:

Toddlers are very observant. They are constantly assessing the world around them. It’s so much fun to watch them notice things about their surroundings. It’s fun, until they gain the language skills to voice their “observations” in public, complete with pointing. Then, it can be pretty embarrassing.

All parents seem to have stories about their kid saying something embarrassing about a stranger. Edwin is just starting to do this, and so far, it’s all pretty innocent stuff. He’s just like your nosy neighbor; he wants to know everything about everybody we see. “Mommy, what’s she doin’?” “Mommy, look at HIM!” “Mommy, what’s she have on her head?” When he sees anyone with white hair he says, “Mommy, that’s Grandpa!” One time, when I told him that no, that wasn’t Grandpa, he said, “That’s Grandpa’s friend!”

I’ve explained to him that it’s not polite to point at people, and it’s not polite to talk about what people look like. But he’s really too young to get that concept. He regularly announces to anyone and everyone what’s going on inside his pants. So I think public decorum is a long way off. I mean sure, he knows “please” and “thank you.” But I think it takes a while to understand the concept that we don’t do things that might make other people uncomfortable. (In fact, some adults I know still haven’t learned it.)

I guess that’s why most parents have embarrassing stories about their toddlers shouting rude things in public: the gap of time between learning language skills and learning social graces. I think they call that gap “toddlerhood.”