When I was a Daisy Scout (kindergarten Girl Scouts) leader we were working on a badge about the world. I had all the girls in a circle and was asking them if they knew any words in a foreign language. Typical responses ensued (some Spanish, Hebrew, Italian etc).
The daughter of my co-leader asked if sign language would count, and of course it did. (Backstory- this girl had an older sister in third grade).
She makes the letter L with her index finger and thumb, carefully positions it on her forehead and announces with all the sincerity, eagerness, sweetness, and authority only 5 year olds can muster:
“This means LOSER”.
Her mother is laughing so hard in the background she can’t breathe. I make a mental note to do an ASL activity very soon.
A couple of funny instances when my son was around 5 years old.
One time we were leaving the grocery store and walking to our car, a midget walked past us and was very cheerful and said hi to us. My son who had never seen a midget before says “ Dad, dad, dad… Did you see that little man?” “Yes, son I did.” At which point my son looks around the parking lot quizzically. “Where’s his little car?”
The other time was when we drove to a popular park to ride the bike paths. We pull up to the park entrance where there was a deer crossing sign. As it turned out, there was a family of deer by the sign and we had to wait for them to clear the road before we turned into the park. “Dad, look at the deer!” “How do they know they are to cross by the sign?”
The 8yo Niece recently started saying something like “and we’re gonna have lots of cake, we’ll have a billion trillion different cakes and”. Her 11yo brother cut her off saying “careful don’t let Uncle Jay hear you say things like that. He did hear me once and he made me write down the number I’d said, and it was 29 figures!”
The other night, my husband put the kids to bed while I was doing the dishes or something. A little while later, my 3 y.o. wandered downstairs. I said, “Oh, is Daddy sleeping?” He said, “No, he is dead.” :eek:
Last week I wore a new dress. Nothing fancy, just a tshirt dress with a flower print. My 6 y.o. said, “Wow, Mom, you look like a real actual woman today.” :mad: Hey.
A long time ago, my roommate and I went to a pizza buffet. He was a big dude with long blond hair and a beard. When we entered, a little girl pointed at him and said “He’s a lion!”
1. When coaching 5 year old kids in soccer I noticed that during practice one little boy just stood off to one end of the field all by himself.
I ran out on to he field next to him and said,“I noticed that you haven’t kicked the ball”.
He replied,“Yeah, It doesn’t come over here very much.”
I said, “I have an idea, lets run over there and kick it.” We did and then he caught on that he didn’t have to wait for the ball anymore.
2. I love to play in the sand and have entered more than a few sculpting competitions. Once, when visiting Hilton Head Island I couldn’t find good sand to work with until I went further away from the shoreline than normal. My “good” sand was very close to a walkway and passers by were fairly close. After I started sculpting a small castle some little kid came by on a big wheel and stopped to watch me carve in the sand. He was pretty excited to see what I was creating and asked me questions. One of his questions was “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. I was 48 at the time. To date, I consider his question to be my finest compliment as an amateur artist.
I was waiting for a ride outside a store one time when two girls came along and set up a Girl Scout cookie stand near me. This was before parents began accompanying their kids on their selling expeditions. I eavesdropped on them as one of the girls expressed concern that she didn’t know how to sell cookies. The other girl replied confidently, “Don’t worry. Just stand there and look cute.”
I don’t smoke generally, but I enjoy a cigar every once in a while. Last night I had one. My three year old came jumping into my bed this morning and immediately announced, “Daddy smells like poop!”
I was in a hurry to leave the house the other day when a woman and her little girl walked down our lane and began asking me questions about our horses.
I explained they were my gf’s horses and she should come back when she was home to answer her questions. Yet she kept asking questions. My answer was the same each time, stop back when gf is here. I looked at my phone and generally acted like I wanted to get going, but the woman kept talking.
The little girl kept silent the whole time, until she finally said, “Mommy, I think the man wants us to go”. The woman shushed her daughter, but I used the opportunity to say, “No, she’s right, I need to get going”.
I go for a walk along our public beach around dusk most days. So I see oldsters, youngsters, infants, locals, tourists, and all the rest. Usually at that time lots of folks are packing up and heading home after a long day in the salt, sand, & sun. Naturally some kids are limp asleep on Mom or Dad’s shoulder, others are tired and cranky and just want to leave. Or they want very badly to stay. It’s always quite a show.
So a couple days ago I walked up on a 30-ish woman with ~2, 4, and 6 yo girls in tow. She was loading the vast collection of pink paraphernalia into the Honda family wagon while the 2yo sat in the pink stroller and the other two were standing around in their matching pink swimsuits watching.
It became obvious Miss 4yo did *not *want to leave the fun beach. She’d glommed onto a liter water bottle she was slowly nursing as a delaying tactic. Just as I got there Mom had gently but firmly pulled the water bottle out of 4yo’s hand and turned it upside down, draining the last dribbles into the gutter.
Girl plunks butt down on the curb with an air of exasperated finality and announces in utter sincerity: “You’re the meanest Mommy in the world!”
Mom and I shared a quick smile as she calmly said “Uh huh, Rose. Let’s go.”, and kept loading pink stuff into the van.
Like **IvoryTowerDenizen **said: “… with all the sincerity, eagerness, sweetness, and authority only 5 year olds can muster.” This little girl was fresh out of eager and sweet, but she had sincerity and authority down cold. The meanest Mommy indeed.
My 5-yo’s tooth fell out. She carried it around with her waiting to put it under her pillow at night and get money from the Tooth Fairy. The whole day. We’re in the car, and she starts crying hysterically.
Me: What happened?
5yo: I lost the tooth. Now I will never get money from the Tooth Fairy!
Me: You’ll find it. And if you don’t, I will call the Tooth Fairy on the phone and tell her you lost the tooth so she will give you money anyway.
5yo: (crying even harder) You can’t call the Tooth Fairy! You can’t.
Me: Why not?
5yo: Because it doesn’t exist!
I was reminded today of a conversation with Littlest Miss, a year ago:
“Do you know why he’s called ‘Winnie the Pooh’”
“Um, no, I don’t think so. That may be in a different story book.”
“I know why. Because he poohs a lot. In the toilet. And that’s why he doesn’t wear pants, so he doesn’t have to pull them up and down all the time.”
Same kid, now in kindergarten:
“I have a boyfriend.”
“Really? Tell me all about him.”
“He’s cute, and he has blonde hair like me, and he chases me at recess.”
“What’s his name?”
“Groot.”
When my niece was four, her best friend was an adorable little boy (also four) who was absolutely obsessed with laundry. He wanted to do laundry, and since he was actually good at it, most people encouraged his interest.
One time when he came for a play date, he asked my niece’s parents if he could start a load of laundry for them. Given permission, he disappeared into the laundry room for about 15 minutes. When this pint-sized cherub returned, he announced, “I started a load of dark clothing in cold water, but the agitator was misaligned, so I fixed that first”.
Just before your punch line I was expecting the story to end with him and his “GF” walking out of the laundry room innocently naked saying that he couldn’t find any dirty laundry so they decided to wash their own clothes instead.
Which would have been equally funny and equally cute, assuming none of the grown-ups had freaked out.
This happened when our now 20 year old son was 5 or so. He ran from his room to the bathroom to take a shower, nekkid as a jaybird. Our room is right next to the bathroom, so we saw him zoom by. He stuck his head in our room and said, “did you see my butt?” “Uh, yeah”, we replied. “Do you want to see it again?” We have not related that story to his girl friend.
