The Awkward Question

Dennis, my brother-in-law, invited Mark and I to a seafood dinner yesterday with his group of colleagues. Although all the other people were complete strangers to me, I did manage to enjoy the yummy food. I sat next to the wife of one of the guys and we started some idle chatter about Hong Kong. I told her that Mark and I love Hong Kong and would try to visit at least once a year. She then asked me if I have been to the Disneyland there and what I thought of it. So I told her we've been there twice and while it's pretty small, it's not too bad.

Then she dropped the bombshell... she asked me if we brought our children there and I just said 'No, it was just the 2 of us'. Then she continued by asking if we have any kids (I had an internal struggle on how I was going to reply to this one.. A part of me wanted to tell her about my 2 Angels, but then since this is the first time I have met her, I decided it was a bit too personal to share so much information with her), so I simply said 'No', thinking (and hoping) that she would stop there. Unfortunately, she didn't... she went on to ask whether we planned to have kids and when it will be.

I tapped Mark's tigh (under the table) as a silent signal for his help, and thank goodness he stopped looking at his iPhone for long enough to extricate me from this sticky situation by telling her 'Yes, we are planning soon'. Fortunately that seemed to satisfy her and she stopped probing further.

I am sure this won't be the last time someone pose this kind of questions to me, and Mark will not be with me all the time to 'save' me from them. I think I need to rehearse the answers so that I can cope better next time. (Alternatively, if my dressing permits, maybe I can just show them my tattoo of the 2 Angels...).

Situtations like this can really catch me unaware (I think the term 'with my pants down' is more suitable), and I hate it because I don't ever want to deny the existence of Lucas and Chloe, but yet I can't tell the truth. I foresee that I will get a lot more of it during social gatherings. The next big one will be Chinese New Year where we will get to meet all the distant relatives... From the bottom of my heart, I really want to tell all the people who ask that I have 2 precious kids; a boy and a girl, but they can't see them because my babies live in my heart.