My 3yo is very into phones lately. She’s seen me use my Bluetooth headset and voice activation. So today she got the headset that goes with our land line, put it on, and started barking people’s names into it. “Call. Granny. McCann!”
So I finally let her call Granny on the regular phone, and in the middle of talking she was like, " . . . yeah, Chloe’s sick. She has – Ooh, I tooted, so I say ‘excuse me!’" Oh well, at least she’s being polite, if unnecessarily informative!
The other night she was terrified by a thunderstorm. Phoenix and I were desperately trying to reassure and calm her. She said the thunder should go away. So we said, “Should we yell at the thunder to go away?” and she laughed like crazy and said, “No, that’s silly!” Then a beat later, and totally serious, “We should have the hawks do it.”
Watching the news a few weeks ago, during the Egyptian ousting of Mubarak, and my 5 year old asks what it’s all about. I think about it for a few minutes, and tell him that the people in that country aren’t happy with their president, and have taken the job away from him.
“Why don’t they like him? Is he mean?” (Yes.)
“Do they have elections in Egypt?” (Yes, they do.)
“Why did they vote for him, then?” (I try to explain about how Mubarak made it difficult for anyone to run against him in an election.)
A friend sent me this a couple weeks ago - a conversation she had with her 3 yr old.
K - I want to be with you forever. Will you come with me when I am an astronaut and I go to space?
Me - I can’t. I’m not an astronaut.
K - Why not?
Me - Because I went to school to learn to be a teacher.
K - I want to be that too.
Me - You want to be a …teacher and an astronaut?
K - Have I already learned everything I need for an astronaut?
Me - No. It takes a really long time to learn to be an astronaut.
K - I changed my mind. I don’t want to be an astronaut. I want to be a teacher so can you tell them?
Me - Tell who?
K - My teachers.
Me - Oh. K, your preschool teachers aren’t teaching you to be an astronaut.
K - Then what are they teaching me?
The little Torqueling, as usual, is always good for a cute thought. One day recently, when I was driving her home from my parents’ house, she was being unusually quiet in the back seat. Then, she suddenly asked, “Daddy, why don’t shadows smile?”
My husband was tousling Josie’s hair the other day, and she screamed “No thank you, Daddy! Don’t touch my body!” It’s a wonder Children Services hasn’t been called on us yet.
Yesterday she was playing around and found her winter hat (with tassled earflaps) and put it on, then said “I’m BEAUTIFUL!” I wish I could have gotten a picture, but when I said “Let me take a picture, beautiful” she ran into her tent.
heh. With the Torqueling, it’s, “Keep your hands to yourself!”
She also loves “telling secrets,” which means whispering stuff into each other’s ears. Usually it’s mundane stuff, like, “I don’t think Momma likes chicken fries! She’s weird!” My favorite thing to do, though, is, “Lemme tell you a secret!” “What?” She leans in close. “I’m going to EAT YOUR EAR! OM NOM NOM!” “Daddy! That’s not a secret!”
My 6-year-old son was telling me everything he had learned about bullies in school. He concluded with “Bullies are the meanest guys in town…except for maybe evil scientists.”
My first grader had a couple of pre-division problems on her math worksheet: I am a number that if you form three groups of seven from me, there are four left over (or something like that - I’m sure I have changed the actual numbers). She correctly answered it, and the next question said, “Draw a picture of what you did to solve it.”
She drew a head with a star on the brain. The next one had bigger numbers and that one had the picture of the head plus pictures of the fingers that she counted on to figure it out.
I’m not sure whether to tell her what the problem actually wants, or just let it go.
My nephew first started going to daycare at about the same time he was learning to talk. Not just starting to speak, but learning to talk IYKWIM. Anyway, at daycare the adults were all women and of course they were all “Mrs. _______.” So for the next few months after he had started going there, he would prefix everyone’s name with “Mrs.,” as in “Mrs. Mommy,” “Mrs. Daddy,” and “Mrs. Uncle DCnDC.”
My nephew (three and a half) and my sister were frying pancakes the other day, while his other mommy was still at work. Nephew went to open the kitchen window “So [other mommy] will smell the pancakes and come home.”
On receiving his first set of markers: “Here’s a red one, and here’s a black one so I can paint the thunder.”
Another recent gem: “Mom, do you know that cats taste really good?” And then: “It’s okay, I can eat them after they’re dead.” They reached a final agreement that he won’t be eating cats as long as he lives with his mommies. The young 'un never ceases to amaze.
My just turned 6 yo daughter just got a non-functioning cell phone as a gift. That is, it’s not on a network, so it can’t make calls or send texts, but all the in-phone features work. This morning, she “sent” me a text message (by way of handing me the phone and telling me I had a text), with the following:
8 yo son: Hey, Moooom?
Wife: yes, my sweet child?
Son: Ya know how we have a butthole? Y’know, where the poop comes out?
Wife: yes, I am aware.
Son: I don’t think fish have a butthole. I think they poop out of their mouth.
Many years ago my brother dated a woman with a 6 year old son. We were sitting at the kitchen table one day, while he colored and told endless rambling stories (as little kids do). He mentioned someone named Russel.
Me: Who is Russel? A friend of yours?
He froze. Stopped coloring immediately, capped his marker slowly and deliberately, set the pen down, pushed the papers aside and clasped his hands together on the table in front of him. With the most serious and earnest expression possible, he sternly said :
"No. Russel is no friend of mind. Russel…(pausing for just the right word)…is my arch-nemesis.
He then cheerily picked up his markers and resumes coloring while I pretty much collapsed on the floor in laughter.
The next one had bigger numbers and that one had the picture of the head plus pictures of the fingers that she counted on to figure it out.