I'm a friendly gal. I smile a lot, always greet my friends with hugs and chatter and I really try to acknowledge less-familiar people when I see them in public.

For some reason, however, my kids don't seem to get it. When we run into people we know, they usually start showing off -- in the form of running around and / or counting loudly -- or they act ridiculous and make the most random, offbeat comments.

"Hi, Kai, how are you today?" a neighbor asked.
"I saw bird poop on the car," he said.

Perhaps this is age appropriate for a 6-year-old, but perhaps I need to better instill the importance of politely greeting people. I have tried explaining it, modeling it, demanding it ... Yet I still feel like it's not working. So maybe I need to just start ignoring it. Or maybe they are just acting like kids and it's OK.

In any case, I'm certainly not going to mimic their unpredictable, arguably rude public behavior. But if I did, it would go something like this:

"Hey, Molly, how's it going?"
"Pickle power!" I yell out, then start running backwards and singing gross, alternate lyrics to the "Happy Birthday" song.

I don't think this would work for me.