I have an appropriate story, but it’s sad-yet-sweet at the end. It’s not a personal story, but I like telling others about it because of the very ending. The softhearted or those dealing with a serious illness in a child, please beware.
There was a little kid in the Chicago area who at age 4 said he wanted to be a train. Not a train engineer, no, a train.
[spoiler]The only reason I know this is because at age 7, suffering from a cancerous brain tumor, Ollie Tibbles got pretty close to his wish thanks to the Make-A-Wish foundation. He got a special ride on our commuter rail service, Metra - carrying plenty of other passengers but decorated up and in honor of him. He got to blow the train’s horn, and a special welcome at Union Station. I remembered reading about the lovely wish at the time; I’ve taken the Metra daily for many years.
As is true of many children who receive their wish, he didn’t survive. But he finally got his real wish. Scroll down on the link and you’ll see the first train engine named by Metra that’s not named after a Chicago suburb. The ‘Oliver “Ollie” Tibbles.’ It was shown to his mother at a Make-A-Wish fundraiser at Union Station a year after the boy’s death. And yes, I’ve had him take me home after a long day at work. I try to smile at him for a job well done.[/spoiler]
My great aunt once asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I told her I wanted to be a window peeker. My entire family was shocked – SHOCKED, I tells ya. But my aunt, having a cooler head that prevailed, asked me what a window peeker does. “You sit on a train and peek out the window!”
How about some non-verbal “logic”? When my nephew was about three he was talking to his mom on the phone, who was overseas on business. He tried to show his mom a new toy he had just gotten by holding it up to the phone. I melted.
The Normans were great neighbors, and Mrs. Norman always had candy in the house.
My younger brother was about 5 and he and his playmate would always stop by, knock on the door and Mrs. Norman would give them some candy.
My mother got wind of this, saw the boys getting candy and told them, “Stop knocking on Mrs. Norman’s door and asking for candy!”
The next day, Mrs. Norman called my mother, laughing. She said, “Look out the window.”
There was my brother and his friend, just standing there by Mrs. Norman’s door.
Mrs. Norman said, "They haven’t knocked on the door, but I think they have been standing out there for a good hour. "
They got the candy that day, but my mother explained that they were not only not to knock on the door, but also not go there and wait for candy.
The next day, a little girl from the neighborhood knocked on Mrs. Norman’s door and said, “Those boys told me if I got candy from you, we could share it.” Sitting quietly on our porch, looking on, was my brother and his friend.
I went to visit some college friends around Christmas a few years ago, and met their two little girls. They arranged for one of their parents to watch the kids while we went out. Upon our return hours later, the older of the two ran up to her mom and proudly proclaimed ‘Mommy I made cookies and poop!’.
It turns out that she was potty training, and having a particularly difficult time with number 2. When I managed to stop laughing for a second I informed my friends that I did not want any cookies.
God, I probably have a million of them from my kids, but for some reason, I’m drawing a blank (parenting does that to you). I do remember my middle kid (son), was going to preschool in the classroom area of a neaby church, so there was some God/Jesus stuff on the walls, etc. One day, when he was 4, he asked me “Daddy, could God destroy the Earth?” I said “Yeah” and he said “Cool!”
On the day of former President Nixon’s funeral, I was explaining to my son that we didn’t get any mail that day because President Nixon died. He said, “Was he our mailman?”
A few years ago, my niece (then about 4 or 5 years old) asked my mom “Does it hurt the turkey when they shave the turkey meat off of it?”. Apparently, she knew that you get wool from sheep by shaving them, and figured it was the same for all animals we got useful products from.
And for all you talking about your little skeptics, here’s one from my own childhood. When I was in, first grade I think it was, Cleveland had an earthquake. Nothing like the ones you hear about in California, no major damage, just enough to shake folks up a bit. Well, I didn’t notice it myself, and I thought that everyone at school talking about it was having a joke at my expense. I come home, and my own mom and sister are in on the joke, too! How cruel! So Mom asked me, who would I trust, to ask if there had really been an earthquake. I told her “The director of the Natural History Museum”.
Mom, being a sensible educational sort, agreed, and subsequently had to apologize to the director after I dropped the phone in shock. But, like I said, I did take his word for it.
When my daughter was about three years old, she asked me one winter day “Do we have any giraffes in our yard?” I told her no. She said “Well, Mommy said so.”
:dubious:
I had no idea why my wife would have told her such a thing, and she wasn’t at home at the time to ask. So I patiently explained to my daughter that giraffes were not native to our part of the world, and the only place to see them was at the zoo. Not being accustomed to having her mother tell her fabrications, she gave me a puzzled look, but realized that arguing with Daddy was pointless, went about her playing.
About an hour later, my parents dropped by, and my daughter rushed to meet them. As soon as they stepped into the house, she said to my Dad “Hurry up and close the door, Grandpa, you’ll let a giraffe in the house.”
Nice one, Roonwit! It reminds me of the story my grandma loves to tell about my mom. Apparently, my mom ran into the house jumping and shouting that there was an elephant outside. My grandma, of course, didn’t believe her, and spanked her for lying. Not a few seconds later, my grandma heard the ruckus outside. Turns out, there was a circus coming into town and was having a “spontaneous” parade! :smack:
I have a long distance girlfriend and we visited my brother and his family in Florida last September. My sister-in-law related the following conversation that she had with my five year old niece:
Niece: What does girlfriend do for a living? SIL: I don’t know, we should ask her. Niece: Does she work with Uncle interface2x? SIL: No, honey, she lives in New York. Niece (suddenly confused): But…how can that be?
