My niece, when she was 3-4, said a number of odd things. First my sister relates how, during a thoughtful moment, my niece turns to her and says, “You know, I’m glad I chose you.” That’s nothing compared to the discussion she had with me about my soulmate, unprompted, when she was around the same age, trying to explain why we (soulmate and I) are separated in this lifetime, or something.
What weird/unfathomable/enigmatic things have your kids said, seemingly from a perspective way beyond their years?
Upon being shown a check Mrs. Mercotan had just received as a part of an inheritance, and hearing her proclaim “Look, mommy got a lot of money!” she queried:
When my youngest sister was about 3 years old she started telling us all about her “other family”, who lived in the bush. In this family, her mother had died after a tree her father was cutting down fell on her, her (much older) brother was a carpenter, and her grandmother had hundreds of birds as pets. She could give you all kinds of details about her house and family.
It was a little weird, and got really creepy after she started insisting that we were all a dream and her “other family” was waiting for her to come back home. Brrrh.
My eldest Godson (Abraham, age five) was over visiting today. Around the time that he, his brother (Gabriel, my other Godson, age one), and their mother, Megan, were about to leave, my (new) boyfriend swung by the house to pick me up so we could go and run the snowcone truck his family owns. (Sorry, no free handouts, guys!!! :P) After meeting Chris for the first time, the bf, Abraham proceeded to look at his mommy and state, “Hey, you said you want a husband! Marry Chris!!” So cute!!!
A week ago one of the family’s in our neighborhood moved out. They had two girls the same ages as my two girls and they were the first kids in the neighborhood that my kids met when we moved in. The last evening they were here we had a little cookout and towards the end if it all the girls in the neighborhood were crying over their friends moving away.
Except one. My youngest daughter. At first I thought that maybe she didn’t realize exactly what was going on, or that she didn’t understand that it wasn’t temporary like a vacation. So as all the other girls were crying and hugging and saying their goodbyes, I pulled my youngest off to the side and asked: “Why aren’t you crying like everyone else?” She looked at me with her most straight forward face and said, “I don’t really like them.”
Her candor and bluntness was so unexpected that I immediately told my remaining neighbors about it after the family that was moving had left. They all laughed about it, and secretly were glad that she is my [del]handful[/del] daughter and not theirs.
My wife related this story to me…
When Li’lChief was about 5 or 6 we’d taken him for a long weekend to Gettysburg. Each year, I’d bring an “away team” of 15-20 Sailors from the USS Eisenhower to Gettysburg to do volunteer work at President Eisenhower’s farm there. I tried to include a bit of family time most years as my wife really likes rural PA in the fall.
As part of the trip, I’d conduct a walking tour of the battlefield for the Sailors. One year, MrsChief and Li’lChief tagged along. Round about lunchtime, my wife broke away so she could get lunch for our son. While eating, she had asked Li’lChief what he had thought of the morning.
My son answered, “Dad knows a lot of stuff. But it’s not important stuff.”
The Butlerette has begun to experiment with Play-doh. (she just turned 3)
Either on Saturday, or Sunday, each week, we make biscuits together, and she likes to eat the raw dough. (She also eats raw bread dough).
She decided to eat some of her blue Play-doh, and discovered that she didn’t like the taste… not one bit. After spitting it out, and crying a bit, she exclaimed to her mother “This isn’t Daddy’s dough!” :eek:
She’s not quite as fond of her Play-doh as she was just a few days ago.
The husband and I took his youngest brother, at the time about 7 years old, to the museum to see a visiting Egyptian exhibit. The family is fairly underprivileged, so exposure to history and culture in general had been minimal. They are nominally Christian (this is important).
We get around to a mummy on display, and we say to Youngest Brother: “Check this out! This mummy is really, really old!”
When Ivyboy was about three, we were watching some silly mini-series on TV…I think based on a Judith Krantz novel. There were WWII biplanes in one of the scenes.
Ivyboy turned to me and very matter-of-factly said, “I died in an airplane, Mommy.”
Hiding my :eek: , I said, “You did?”
“Yes,” he said, turning back to the show. “The men in blue shot me down.”
When he was about this same age, I was visiting my in-laws and my SIL and her friend were dancing and singing to him. My SIL started singing some old war song that she knew, and my son, who had been giggling until then, suddenly burst into tears.
I was watching my 8 year old neighbor on September 8, 2001. Somehow the subject of Timothy McVeigh came up, and I explained what he had done. Travis asked me why and I said “He hated our government, so he blew up one of their buildings and killed a lot of people.”
His response was “That’s just stupid. If you hate the government, go live in another country. Don’t go around blowing up buildings and killing people.”
Three days later I wish twenty hijackers had been as smart.
Discussing shopping and money with the little lad at bedtime turned into a conversation about jobs and what you can “be” when you grow up. I’d mentioned architects and engineers, and the lad’s thoughts had run off towards the professions of his Lego City people, doctors, police, firefighters… he paused, and then said: “But you can’t choose to be a Robber, can you? Because then you’ll have to live in a prison”. Good lad.
A friend of mine had a military husband who was deployed overseas. When a (male) friend of theirs came by the house one day, her little son cried, “Quick, Mommy! Kiss him so he’ll stay!”
My father passed away just before my girls turned 2. A couple of weeks later I was watching Celtic Woman with one of them cuddled under my arm. A woman was singing this beautiful song and my emotions were still very close to the surface and my girl said “She’s singing because she’s sad.” I asked what she was sad about. She said “She’s singing because she’s sad about her father.”
We were stopped at a traffic light in the city. One of the girls was like “come on daddy, go!” I said we couldn’t and explained how traffic lights make sure that the cars from both roads don’t go into the intersection at the same time and the other said “There must be a computer inside”.
This past weekend we hiked up this mountainside to a little plateau and perched ourselves on a big flat rock and started eating bananas. It was very quiet and then a gust of wind blew through the trees and made them rustle. One said “The wind is telling us something”. I said “Oh yeah? What’s that?” “The wind is telling us we’re all beautiful”.
Can I tell a story about my brother? Two stories, actually.
When he was 3 or 4, we were all visiting my grandfather in the hospital. There was a pond outside, and one of the doctors noticed my brother was looking at it.
“Oh, look at the duckies!” says the doctor.
“Those are not duckies, they are WATERFOWL,” my brother replied, in a rather scathing tone.
The other story: We used to have a cat named Moose, who was a mighty hunter. One day my brother ran into the house, yelling, “Mommy! Mommy! Moose dismembered a rodent in the yard!”
Small children don’t normally know the word dismembered, right?
When my sister’s relationship was on the rocks (or actually past that stage and she was living in a non-violent or abusive - but loveless - household), she had a plan to move out and be a single mum. This was hidden from her two year-old (she thought).
She was stil months away from actually moving but was starting to collate her papers and posessions, put them in order, and throw away some junk.
Two year-old: “Mum, are we moving?”
My sister (surprised): “No, no.”
The two year-old, disbelieving her, but answering in a wink-and-a-nudge way that an adult might: “Aaah. Just packing a few things…”
Well, he’s not my son but the little boy i babysit came out with a few crackers the other night.
We were watching Britains got talent (for americans its a bit like american idol but you can do anything to try and impress the judges-sing, dance, snort, etc), and he decided he wanted to go on Britains got talent…fine thats ok, not too strange…
But, he then asked, “if you win britains got talent do you get an OBE?”
“And if you get an OBE, does it mean you get to visit the Queen’s house and use her toilet? Because what kind of loo roll do you think she uses? And how many loos do you think she has? I think shes got EIGHT- with jacuzzi’s in every single one!!!Do you think she leaves her loo roll by the toilet so theres always a spare incase you run out?”
Good lad.