Grandson, 2 1/2, singing as I’m holding him:
“abcdefg,hijklllo pickle”
“Twinkle, twinkle, little pickle.”
Pause as he looks intently into my face. “That’s funny, Oma.”
Gestures evidently count, as anybody who thinks they don’t is welcome to have a chat with our ASL-speakers. When the Niece was about 6 months old, whenever she got laid down for a change of clothes, she’d grab whichever piece of clothing she could (including the diaper) and place it on top of her, in the right spot… if they were acceptable. If she did not want to wear that particular piece, she’d do a good impression of a disc thrower; I think that doing so while laid on her back is quite an accomplishment, actually.
She’s now 2yo, the Nephew 5. They have recently been introduced to Heidi cartoons, which run during their breakfast. They’ve decreed that the Niece is Heidi, the Nephew is Peter and Daddy is Heidi’s grandfather - they’re still not sure who Mommy and Grandma B and Grandma M are (I’m really looking forward to see who gets to be Fraulein Rottenmeyer once she shows up). The kidlets were telling my mother all this, and the Nephew turned to me and said “well, but of course you aren’t familiar with Heidi’s cartoons!” “Yes I am! They were on TV for the first time when I was a bit older than you are - and what’s more: before there were cartoons, there were Heidi books, and I have read them!” Nephew and niece: “WOW!”
Those books are still at Mom’s, they’re beyond the Kidlet’s reading ability but will be coming off the high shelf soon.
6 year old: “Martin Luther was a King and everyone liked him. Then he died. He wanted everyone to be nice to brown people.”
When my daughter was 4 or 5, she said that Martin Luther King wanted people to all get along, no matter what color hair they have.
Last weekend, my three-year-old and I were playing Wii bowling. She told me, “Watch and learn,” and proceeded to throw a strike. It was quite awesome.
And this one is so great I’m posting it again: I was hustling her along to get her to her preschool, and told her, “I have to be at work on time, or my judge is gonna be mad.” She said, “Yeah, and if he gets mad, he’ll scratch people.”
Scratch people? Uh, okay. Spent the day wondering where she got the idea that the judge scratches people if he gets mad. The next day, I drop her off at her grandmother’s house, and say, “Okay, I gotta go!” She says, “Yep, you gotta go see the bear!”
Bear? What…AHA! Now it comes together. I’d told her a day or two before, when she asked what my judge’s name was, that his name was Judge Bayer. With her Texas ear and accent, she apparently thought I worked with a bear. Who scratches people if they’re late.
I think that this wins the thread.
My contribution:
“It’s cold out. Grandpa, do you have those headphones, that keep your ears warm, and you can’t listen to music with?”
OK, that came from a 21 year old, but seemingly yesterday she was 3.
Looks like she’s in the “too much TV” club with my daughter. TLB is an infomercial junkie, constantly expounding on the wonderful features of the latest piece of junk she saw advertised.
We were walking through the store the other day when she stopped me and yelled “Look daddy, they sell The Wonder File here! You need one of these – it’ll help you organize all your papers and documents!”
Truman Burbank, that is great.
So, I don’t even like kids, but this happened to me about a month ago: I was walking about, and some kid was twirling around, buzzing, shrieking, doing kid stuff. The noise was irritating me, and I became more irritated when the kid slammed straight into me. Then, the kid, with his big dark eyes looked up at me and said, “I’m sorry.” It was so cute that I couldn’t be mad. But then --it gets better!-- he followed be after I said it was okay and kept moving, jumped in front of me, and said with complete sincerity, “Lady, I’m sorry.” Ha! Lady! That cracked me up, and was adorable.
Which, when you think about it, is just as arbitrarily inane as skin colour or any other attribute.
My daughter was probably 2 or 3 y.o. A friend of the wife’s came to visit, bringing along her son of about the same age to play. We three adults were sitting on the patio chatting, kids were running around the yard doing kid things. Suddenly I heard daughter exclaim in tones of unmitigated awe…"How do you do that??!"
We looked up to see that the young lad had unzipped his pants and was casually relieving himself against a tree. Daughter thought it was really neat to be able to shoot a stream standing up, and wished she could do it too. The boy’s mother turned six shades of red and screamed at the kid to “stop that right now!!!” Wife and I finally stopped laughing long enough to explain to the girl that that wasn’t something just everyone could do…you had to be [ahem] properly equipped for it.
SS
I was staying at a friend’s beach house and some of his mom’s friends had brought their grandchildren down to the beach for the weekend. I always bring my dog, so the 8-year-old was fascinated with my dog and wanted to go with me to walk her one afternoon. He seemed like he knew what he was doing with dogs, so I let him take her leash and basically, just followed them while he walked her. Soon, of course, my dog did her little poop walk, sniffed around for the good spot, and assumed the hunched-over position to poop. The kid, stopped and waited for her, seeing that she was about to poop. As she started, he decided he could help with a little coaching. So he gently called out to the dog, “Push, [dog’s name]! Puuuuuuuush!”
I giggled uncontrollably all the way back to the house.
One from the summer. The kids were outside playing and my husband was making dinner. Our incredibly loud smoke alarm goes off:
Kidlet’s friend: What’s that?!
Kidlet: Oh, that’s just my dad cooking dinner. <shrugs>
(I thought it was hilarious, my husband less so.)
That makes me wanna see my niece! The last time I saw her she was 3 months old. She’ll be 5 months the next time I see her! Mom says she’s starting to babble to her stuffed animals.
Tonight, I was curled up with my kids, 6 and 3, watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. An explosion goes off, and there is a dubbed-in Wilhelm Scream. Jill, the 3 year old, perks up and goes “Hey, that’s the sound from Star Wars!”.
I love my kids.
Wow…impressive!
He knew your username!
When my daughter was around three, when it was time for her to poop she would say it was time for her poo poo to go to work, and the toilet was its office. I said “I know just how that feels, kid.”
Aw, man, I can’t wait to have kids! I love these stories.
My niece once said something factually wrong with absolute certainty. When her dad asked her why she thought that, she stubbornly said, “I know it in my head!” That phrase immediately entered the family parlance.
I was recently taking two of our boys to see a movie with a former coworker of mine and his two kids.
EH (joking): Just be polite and don’t bite them, all right?
Boy1 (age 7): You know, Boy2 has the DNA of a tiger.
B2: (rolls eyes)
EH: Oh, does that make him bite people?
B1: Yes. He has some issues.
My first name is William, but another niece couldn’t quite say that, so she called me Willigum. It was so cute when she said it, it almost became my username here.
The baby can’t talk yet, so I don’t know if this counts, but I find it very cute so I’m posting it anyway.
My friend will sing “Lollipop, lollipop, oo la li lollipop, lollipop!” to her baby, and on the last lollipop the baby will always spit out his pacifier and laugh manically. I have know idea how she trained him to do that, but it’s pretty freaking adorable. Even funnier, if she starts singing and he doesn’t have his pacifier, he’ll get this distressed look and crawl over to his pacifier just so he can spit it out.