I was bored one night last month and was watching The Little Mermaid. My 2-year-old son was doing his own thing, in and out of the room, sometimes paying attention during the songs. When “Kiss the Girl” came on, he watched for a few seconds, and then came over and climbed up onto my lap and gave me a big ol’ kiss.
And a couple of weeks ago, he noticed that the message light on my work phone was blinking. He didn’t know the word for “blink,” so he said, “Mama! Light -” and then blinked very emphatically a few times at the blinking light. I thought it was pretty cute, and clever to figure out a way to communicate that to me!
Over the summer, my son kept trying to rub my breasts. I kept pulling his hands away and calmly telling him that those were private and that I preferred he not touch them. Finally one day after me pulling his hands away and saying calmly that I didn’t want him to touch them, he said, “But Mommy! I have to!”
So I asked why. “They’re magic! Like a genie’s lamp!”
Then I got up, walked into the next room and laughed so hard I cried. When I was able to calm down enough to explain to my husband what our son was said, he agreed with him.
Snickers! We had something similar with RuffLlama at about the same age. We went through cow, cat, dog, sheep, horse…then it was:
DeathLlama: And what does the shark say?
RuffLlama, menacingly: Dun-dun! [Jaws theme]
He had not been trained to say that, which made it all the funnier. We just happen to make that noise when playing with his various toy sharks and such.
Children are like sponges. They soak up everything around them.
For example, brother, SIL, 4-year-old niece, 1-year-old niece are leaving a bowling alley, deciding which nearby restaurant to head to for dinner. Discussions back and forth about all the choices in view.
The four-year-old pipes up and points. “Daddy, I wanna go to that fucking restaurant.”
My 15 month old likes to go around touching everything she’s not supposed to (outlets, night lights, trash can, etc.) saying, “No No!”
We’re also teaching her sign language and the sign for “thank you” is the tips of your fingers touching your chin, then pulling them away towards the person you’re thanking. Well, she’s also just learned how to blow kisses, so now anytime she wants to say thank you, she blows a kiss. It’s too cute to correct.
Years ago at Passover we were at the point where Elijah is invited in (you pour a glass of wine and open the front door). My little nephew was given “door duty”. At the end we hear:
Since we’re sharing church stories, I’ll toss in one about myself (which my mom the inveterate story teller, never fails to regale about to anyone who will listen). I was at church, 4 or 5 y/o, and another boy was fussing in his seat, being distractable and all that, so I started copying him. Dad eventually got tired of all my antics and hauled me out the back of the church to give me a quick spanking (mid 60’s for those who are horrified by the prospect of corporal punishment). I came back all chastened and remained as quiet and as still as a church mouse until the end of all the ceremonies, at which time, at the top of my lungs, I anticipated what the priest on duty (Catholic diocese) always said at the very end and bellowed, “Thanks Be To God!” My mom says it brought down the house.
When my son was 2 years old, he gave his girl cousin (also 2 years old) a toy, who then kissed him on the cheek. It was very cute and all the adults went “awww”, but he seemed confused by the action. So his grandfather explained: “When a girl kisses you, you have to kiss her back!” Even more confusion is now evident on my little boy’s face. “Go on… Kiss her back!”
With a sigh and a shrug, he leaned over towards his cousin and kissed her. ON HER BACK.
On a more sentimental note, from the age of 2 through 10 I give my children a recap of their year the night before their birthday and bid goodbye to their (N-1) year old self.
When my oldest daughter “T” turned five she was old enough to start remembering the drill, so to speak, as I listed all the fun things that “four-year-old T” had done for the first time, and how I would miss 4YO-T so very much, but was looking forward to meeting five-year-old T in the morning.
I must have seemed quite wistful because she felt the need to comfort me. “Don’t feel sad,” she said to me. “Four-year-old T won’t really be gone. She’ll be here, inside me!”
A couple weeks ago, I was picking my 3 year old daughter up from daycare. They were on the playground. She ran up to me then pulled her dress up and started digging around in her underwear.
I kept pulling it down and telling her to stop (while laughing) but she kept pulling it up and digging around. Finally she stopped and said “Daddy, I found a feather for you and put it in my panties so I wouldn’t lose it, but now I can’t find it.” Now every few days she says “Remember when I lost that feather in my butt?”
Oh yeah here’s another good one. We were at Wal-mart a couple months ago when she said she needed to pee. I take her to the ladies room and wait outside.
A lady goes in and comes out. Another comes out. It’s been about five minutes. Another lady goes in and comes out. I ask her if there were any other adults in there, thinking I need to at least stick my head in and check on things.
She said she thought she was the only one and asked if my daughter was in there. I said yes. She said, “Oh she’s ok, she’s laying in the floor singing.”
Son #1 was not pleased about Son #2 coming along when #1 was about 3 years old. So when I explained to #1 that we were going to have yet another baby (#3), he looked at #2, sleeping in his playpen, and his face lit up! He grabbed #2’s bottle, blanket, stuffed animal, and a couple of diapers, and shoved them into his little duffel bag, and set it by the front door.
Yes, he thought we were getting rid of #2 and getting a replacement baby. So he packed #2’s bag for someone else to come get him.
When #3 was born, he just sighed and said, “Whatever.”
Last year, youngest son (2 at the time) had speech therapy. While his therapist was here, he dropped a toy on his foot, and said, “Shit!” Middle son (3 at the time) piped up and said, “Matt, don’t say ‘shit.’ Say ‘damn it’!” :eek:
I work with young kids as a behavior therapist. Here are two stories from this week:
My seven-year-old student, S, told me his dad hurt his toe. I asked several questions to practice S’s goal of sustaining a conversation.
“Oh, yeah?” I said. “How did he do that?”
“He fell down.”
“And what did he say?”
“Fuck!”
My three-year-old, D, his mom, his older brother, and I were all playing pretend. D put on a cowboy hat and began trotting around the room, saying, “Yee haw! Yee haw!”
“Is your horse hungry?” I asked D, and handed him a piece of plastic pizza.
D began enthusiastically shoving the pizza into his crotch, saying, “Yum yum yum!”
His mother and I stared at each other for a moment, completely bemused. Then I figured it out. The imaginary horse was between D’s legs, so he was feeding it!
My MIL is English, and has English and Scottish relatives. One of her cousins or someone came over from Scotland, bringing along their children.
My eldest nephew was quite entranced (as are most American males) by this little Scottish lassie, and followed her around like a puppy dog. Her father began teasing him, saying that he would only let his daughter marry a wealthy man who could provide for her.
Nevvie thinks this over, disappears into his room…and comes out with his piggy bank.
When my son was about 2, my husband was getting ready to leave the house and muttered something about needing to clean up “all this crap” out of his study . Hubby got downstairs to the living room and called out to Sam to hurry up and get downstairs. Sam called back indignantly, “Daddy, I’m looking at the cwap!”
This happened recently. We have a 4-yr old boy and a 3-yr old girl who were upstairs playing together. The girl comes downstairs, crying.
“My bwother hit me!” <wail>
My wife: “He did?”
“Yeah! I was just punching him in the head, and he hit me!”
When my son was about four, we had a young minister at church who was fond of trying new things. So for Maundy Thursday he did a service with the church darkened and readers sitting on chairs in the front of the sanctuary, between the altar area, which is up about three steps, and the pews. He also substituted a regular round loaf of bread for the wafers we sometimes used. So this loaf was sitting on the altar, the church was dark except for candles and a voice came from that area.
Son looked at me, wide-eyed, and stage-whispered to me, “Look! A talking burger!”
I’m not sure how much of the rest of the service was heard by the laughing people in the pew in front of us.
