In an elevator that had two buttons “G” and “1”. (All it really needed was one button marked “Other floor”.) A mother and two children got on and the older (6yrs) daughter asked “What is G button for?”. The mother started to explain about “Ground floor”. The daughter must have been half-listening and broke in with (high pitched voice) “GROUNDED? WHY AM I GROUNDED. WHAT DID I DO. MOOOOOOM! THAT’S UNFAIR…”.
We took 2 of the grandkids on a picnic to a creek (crick!) that I played at when I was a kid (I’m a couple of weeks shy of turning 59). I was sitting on a rock with my 8 yo granddaughter eating our lunch and looking at our surroundings. There are some beautiful, huge white pines on the other side of the creek and I was thinking to myself how those are the same trees that were there when I was a kid. So I said to my granddaughter, “those trees over there are very old”. She asked, “how old are they?”. I said IDK but they were here when I was your age, so they’re pretty old. She said, “Gramma you’re not very old. You’re still in your 50s, people don’t get old until they’re in their 60s and you look like you’re in your 30s or 40s 
My other grandma, she looks like she’s in her 50s or 60s (she’s a little younger than me!)” I said, “thank you sweetie, you just made my day!” Actually, she made my year!
I hope that conversation didn’t get back to “other grandma”!
Thoughts to ponder:
Kid: <points at lizard being passed around> Is he not-visible?
This one wasn’t on the kids, but…
Kid: How do you keep the snakes from pooping on you?
Me: They have pooped on me.
Other kid: The snake really pooped on you?
Me: This snake hasn’t pooped on me YET.
<thirty seconds later>
Me: …I did say “yet”. Can someone hand me a towel?
Years ago I worked in a zoo, and we had a different similar species of baby dinosaur.
The best reaction we ever had to them was a very small child, maybe 3 or so, who on seeing them pointed excitedly and yelled ‘Mummy, mummy, look! Rabbits!’
They were known in the staff room as the rabbits for some years, to the bewilderment of students on placement.
My six year-old yesterday: “And when the caterpillar has had enough to eat he turns into a raccoon!”.
I was shopping in the pet section at Target. A mother and her toddler son were nearby, shopping for cat litter. The mother commented to her son that they needed a certain kind of litter because [cat’s name]'s poops are particularly stinky. This prompted the toddler to announce loudly, so that everyone in a several aisle radius could hear: “MY POOPS DON’T STINK!”
My mom and dad would tell my brother and I that they were 39 years old. It took a few years for us to get old enough to realize they had been 39 for a couple years in a row =)
When my niece was 6 or 7 I took her to Ghirardelli for ice cream. There was a man there, going from table to table. He would take unfilled balloons out of a myriad of colored pockets on his pants and make balloon animals for the kids. My niece neglected her ice cream and watched the balloon man in awe for about 10 minutes. When she finally spoke she breathlessly said “I wonder where he got those pants?”
Daughter, age 6, at Chinese restaurant: “Mom! Look at all the testicles on the octopus!”
Nephew, returning home from kindergarten: “Well, I don’t understand! If I can’t hit anyone, how am I supposed to make them do what I want them to do?!”
Not super-young, but really quick with the snappy comeback:
Moon Unit (age 8ish, referring to her grandmother’s death several years before): “I don’t want you to die!”
Me: “Don’t worry. I’m going to live to be a hundred, and I’ll come live with you and make your life miserable”.
Moon Unit: “I changed my mind”.
Whenever I’m feeling shitty, I remember this one time in the supermarket where I turned down an aisle and there was a mom with her little girl. The mom was perusing pickles or something and the little girl was dancing. Just dancing. No music. She just thought, “I’m gonna dance right in the middle of the pickle aisle.”
That always brings a smile to my face.
(I wish we had upvotes!)
My young nephew was explaining all of the intricacies of “after care” to me when he interrupted himself and asked me,.Apropos of nothing:
*Do you like Cheese Doodles?
Having no earthly idea what Cheese Doodles were, I quickly replied, Yes, Sam, I really like Cheese Doodles. Do you like Cheese Doodles? to which Sam replied, Yes, I like Cheese Doodles too.
Hilary Algar, you’re one of today’s Lucky 10,000
My son: Who’s your favorite superhero?
Me: Captain America
Son: No he’s a boy. You’re a girl. You have to pick a girl superhero.
(We talked about that)
Daughter as a toddler at a family gathering would walk to the coffee table and pick up a packet of sugar, then walk to someone and hand it to them. Each person would get a solemn “Tay to”, then she would walk back to the table, and repeat the process with the next relative. Once all the packets were gone, she would reverse the process. She went to each relative and claimed the packet, and solemnly said “Tay to” before returning the packet to the coffee table. (Tay to was her way of saying thank you.)
Same daughter, slightly older, would respond “No thank you” when we asked her to do something.“Beamette, time to brush your teeth.” “No, thank you.” Polite civil disobedience at it’s cutest.
I had been looking after some kids a few days a week and the youngest, age 5, quickly selected her favorite book from my bookshelf. I put it back each day, often in different spots, and she always goes straight back to that one.
I have Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Heidi, The Black Stallion, Koko’s Kitten… nope. The one she loves, carries around, and affectionately refers to as “my book” is “One Day at a Time in Al-Anon.”
My absolute favorite is decades old.
My daughter was playing in the same room as her cousin. They were both very young, maybe 4. Cousin was singing the ABC song while he played. He got about halfway into the alphabet when he completely mangled the orders of the letters, repeating some, omitting many. It was a mess. Then he came to the end when he sang, “Now I know my ABCs…”
At which point daughter interrupted, “No you don’t!”
mmm
My oldest, when he was three, came running in from the back porch yelling: “the wokka-bees get me, the wokka-bees get me!” I had him show me where and it turned out he had stepped into a line of ants, which had crawled up both of his legs. We had a little talk about how if he stood away from the line, they’d ignore him. Also that they were called ants. He was pleased to have become more knowledgeable.
I thought it was creative of him to come up with wokka-bees. The only insect name he knew was bee and these bees were walking rather than flying.