Conference moira::parenting

    Since this is one of my favorite notes in the conference, I'll lead off..
    
    Some of you may remember an earlier reply I had written about how
    Nicholas helped me shop for birthday cards, and came across a 'Shoebox
    Greeting' card that showed two bikini-clad women on the cover. (He
    proceeded to inform everyone withing earshot that "They have *breasts*!"
    and that "Daddy likes *this* one and I (Nick) like *that* one!")
    
    Well, yesterday while in the same store with his mother looking for
    Easter cards, Nick ignored all other cards and went searching for "the
    breast ladies" and when he found it, insisted that Kathy buy it because
    Grammy and Grampy *needed* that card. Wish I could see the looks on
    their faces when they open it up....
    
    Freddie
    
    

    Yesterday, I was taking my son to the doctor for his 5 year physical. 
    As we were getting ready to cross the parking lot he looked both ways
    and proceeded.  I complimented him on his good habit of looking both
    ways and he said,
    
    "Five year olds know how to do that, you know"...
    
    (I'm glad he made it to five! - dones this mean things will bet
    easier?) NOT
    
    -sandy
    

    One day my husband took our daughter Jamie (now four) to a local store.
    When they walked in, Jamie zeroed in on a large display of Barbie dolls
    and came running back to Dale with a Ken doll. She asked Dale to buy it
    for her, but Dale told her she didn't need it because she already had
    three Barbie dolls (girl dolls) at home. Jamie's response: "But Daddy,
    Barbie needs a man!"
    
    I try to remember this story and the "I love you's" when she does
    something that drives me crazy!
    
    Nancy-

    My son Shane (21 months) is too funny.  He's now very aware of the fact
    that the cat eats too.  Every night he goes and checks the cat's bowl
    to see if it's empty and then he brings it to me so I can fill it up. 
    After I fill it up, he takes it and walks very carefully and puts it
    back.  It's just too cute!
    
    Lori B.

    At church school last Sunday, the R.E. teacher brought in hard boiled
    eggs, and the K-2 class colored them, and put stars etc. on for
    decoration. She explained the method of peeling the egg when they
    wanted to eat it. 
    
    Wednesday morning Alexander (age 6) decided that he wanted to eat his
    egg for breakfast, and proceeded to peel it. I went into my bedroom to
    dress, and he suddenly burst in with this look of amazement on his face
    "Mommy, look what I found in the middle of my egg!! Can I eat it too
    ????!!!!" (...he was holding the yolk as if he had found a special
    surprise !)
    
    Oh, to have the wonder of a child again.....
    
    

    My nephew, Brian (just turned 5), has been saving his worst behavior
    for his mom lately.  
    
    Last night he went to the hospital with his Dad to visit a friend from 
    work, and behaved very nicely.  When they got home, Luke was putting 
    Brian to bed and he mentioned it and how happy he was about it.  Brian
    said "Yeah.  I don't know why I can't be that good for Mommy".
    
                                                  Tracy

    Nathan was in wimpering and crying on his changing table while dad was
    getting him cleaned up for the day, saying 'boo-boo, boo-boo'.  Having
    just gotten over the chicken pox, he has many, and enjoys frequent
    kisses to make everything better.  So I went in (like usual) and
    gathered him up for a big sympathetic hug, when I got this silly grin
    and screams of 'boob-boob' with appropriately placed jabs to my chest!
    What a kidder (cant wait to hear their stories from day care today!)!
    
    Adrienne
    

    Avanti (our almost 3 year old daughter) and her classmates at her
    daycare had just finished playing with a lot of shaving cream and were
    cleaning up. On the way home I asked her what she did with the shaving
    cream and our conversation went like so...
    
    Avanti : "I squished it and rubbed all over the table."
    Me:	     "Sounds like fun. Can I come and join you tomorrow when you 
    	      play with shaving cream?"
    Avanti : "No Mommy!"
    Me:	     "Why Not?"
    Avanti : "....'cause... you need to work Mommy!!!"

    My son Brad (2 1/2) and I will spontaneously tell eachother I need a hug and a
    kiss.  So last night Brad was drawing and I was sitting near him on the
    couch and I said, "Brad I need a Hug!"  He turned to me and said,
    "Chill Out Mom", and put his crayon down and came over and gave me a
    hug.  The things they pick up at school.
    
    Alex

    My daughter Aja turned one last week.  The other night we celebrated
    her birthday with her "Nana" ... Nana baked her a chocolate cake with
    chocolate frosting (what else for a first birthday ;)) - my husband
    suggested letting Aja stick her finger into the cake.
    
    Well, she proceeded to push her finger into the cake, then into her
    mouth.  All of a sudden she got this huge grin on her face and said
    "MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM" !
    
    Guess she inherited Mom's chocolate fancy at an early age.

       
    
       When my daughter Pamela 2 1/2 has a runny nose, she tells me to
    hurry and get a kleenex because her nose is "dropping off"
    
                                  Jill
    

    
    This isn't about a little kid... but he is my biggest baby.

    Brent, who will be 19 in July, was walking behind me yesterday.... as
    we went out the door to go to the "out-laws" house...  I grabbed a
    handful of tissues, it is allergy season, just ask my nose...  one
    happen to fly out of my hand, and as Brent picked it up and handed it
    to me he said, "Here, Mom, your bra's leaking".

    


    Payback is a b*tch, Brent..... I WILL get even!

    Timing is everything in life, I guess...  Last weekend, we were
    visiting my sister-in-law's family in Connecticut (we live in NH), and
    my mother-and-father-law- were up from Florida as well.  M_I_L and
    F_I_L get in our van with us for the ride to another relative's house. 
    Grandpa is happily keeping Chelsea occupied in the car, when there was
    kind of a silence...then out of the blue, Chelsea says....  "Daddy has a
    penis."  All in the car are silent, so I turned around and said, "yes
    Daddy has a penis" (thinking, lucky for you he does..  :).  Then she
    says, "Mommy and Chelsea have a vagina."  Right...  More silence, then
    she says...  "Mommy has nipples."  Uh huh, Chelsea.  "Daddy has
    nipples.  Chelsea has nipples."  I'm waiting for her to ask what
    Grandma and Granpa have!  :  Don't know what prompted this anatomyy
    lesson, but hope we handled it well!

    Stephanie came up with a new line to the old "Take Me Out to the Ball
    Game" song last night...
    
    ...
    Buy me some cheese and crackers, Jack
    ...
    
    I guess I need to talk to the guys at the concession stands and make a
    suggestion.
    
    					Mair
    

Speaking of anatomy, my sister-in-law tells the story of her husband
taking their son to the doctor.  In a loud voice in the waiting room,
he asked "Daddy, did you bring your penis with you?"
							Larry

Easter Sunday all the adults were sort of sitting around digesting the ham - 
when in runs my almost 4 year old holding his penis ... crying.  When asked
what was the matter his reply for the room to hear was "I fell and hurt my
private part" - poor thing!  Can only hug at this point and bite your lip!

    One day, as I was making lunches and the boys were eating, I started 
    singing, "She wore an itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie, yellow polka-dot
    bikini" (the only words I know), and started bopping around.  Then
    I asked my 7 and 8 year olds if they knew what a bikini was.
    My 8-year-old replied, " It's a green vegetable, like a 
    cucumber."
    
    At first I was stunned to silence, trying to think of what he was 
    thinking of...  ZUCCHINI!!!!!
    
    I laughed so hard I cried.
                   

    My son asked me the other day how old you are when you get your college
    teeth.
    
    Wha....
    
    Remember those teeth daddy had taken out last year?  The ones that come
    in the back.
    
    OH as dawn breaks on marble head...
    
    His wisdom teeth!
    
    -sandy
    

    Our 3 year old daughter , Avanti, likes to decide who cooks dinner each
    day. She will say "Mommy, you play with me. Daddy it's your turn to
    cook dinner today" or the other way. So on Friday when she told me to
    cook dinner while Daddy played with her and our conversation went like
    this:
    
    Mommy : "But Mommy cooked yesterday and Daddy cooked the day before, so 
    	     it's your turn today".
    
    Avanti : "I can't cook Mommy"
    
    Mommy : "Why not?"
    
    Avanti : "'cause I need to grow up first".
    
    

    My daughter (3) has a ritual at night: she pick which underwear she
    will wear the next morning. Well one evening my husband was putting her
    to bed and they forgot to pick the underwear. So he comes downstairs
    and via the intercom we hear her sit up and say:
    	"I forgot about the panties. I do not want to be a bad girl but
    	I forgot about the panties."
    
    Ania

    
    
       The other night my husband was upstairs changing the baby.  When he
      came down, he found my 3-year old son sitting in the middle of the 
      living room watching TV on his "POTTY".  He needed to go potty and 
      didn't wan't to miss his show so he dragged it out of the bathroom.
      When my husband asked him what he was doing he replied "Watching 
      cartoons".  Kids are already thinking about the most efficient way
      to do everything they want at the same time...
    

    Driving home the other day, I pointed out to Ryan (3 1/2) that the
    State Police office in front of us had a police dog in the car. I
    commented that some police officers have police dogs but not all of
    them. To which Ryan replied
    
    
    
    "I know that; the rest of them have police cats"!!!
    

re .17 (the kid who calls zucchini "bikini")

Maggie, who is 4 1/2, calls kiwi fruit "bikini".  Don't know why.


Frank

Guess everybody thinks their child's baby words are the cutest, but ya 
gotta admit it's hard to beat:

hoppopitamus (for hippopotamus)

Steve

    hoppopitaus is cute... when Brent was a baby he use to call a
    hippopptamus a hippy-o... and a rhinosorus a rhiny-o....

    Yup, hippopotamus for my 2-year old comes out:
    
    Ha-pip-pee-o   I guess it's a variation of "a hippo"
    
    The best one I heard was when I was babysitting a neighbor's 2-year old
    during the Great Gypsy Moth Caterpillar Infestation in New England. 
    His version of caterpillar was:
    
    Kit-chee-gub-ba
    
    Sarah

    You've brought this on yourselves, forcing me to share some of Alex's
    best :-)
    
    These from age 21 months:
    
    Hoppy-tah       Helicopter
    Feckent         Elephant
    Bonyins	    Sponges
    Wok-a-beebee    Rock-a-bye-baby
    Rickut          Record
    Peesh           Sheep
    Muppo*          Nipple
    Ah-vid-did      Olive
    Feeps           Grapes
    
    Leslie
    
    *From the classic line, muttered to herself before nursing in the
    morning (& terminally funny to all her relatives), "Noss; mafunna
    muppo."  (Nurse; me found the nipple.) 

The other day I told Kati "Come here, I've got a secret" and she backed away
with a frightened look on her face.

After I repeated myself she said "NO MOMMY!  I DON'T WANT TO SMOKE A
CIGARETTE!!!"

    We store a friend's motorcycle in our garage.  Gina think's every one
    that she sees is: "Peter's mogocycle."
    
    judy

My current favorite from Nicole (2 years today) is:

	Some getti   - for spaghetti

    Lindsay got a chirpy yellow chick for Easter from Great-Grandma and 
    loves it...laughs hysterically at the sight of it.  It is so funny!
    I will be holding her or burping her and out of the blue she'll be 
    cracking up.....look around and her chick is in sight!  She's only
    4 months this Saturday and she will spot it across the room and laugh
    ...she just sits and giggles for 10 minutes at a time!   I'm borrowing 
    my mom's videocam to get it on film!

    One the note of how kids pronounce words....  When Brad was about 1 1/2
    he called the movie Robin Hood - Robert Could and when you ask him how
    the president is he says , "George Push".
    
    Sasha

    Last summer, about the time that Ryan turned 3, my husband taught him
    that George Washington's face is on the $1 bill. Ryan continues to call
    them "Georges" - and often asks me for a geoge so he can buy toys!
    

    Recently my 20 month old son has been getting into baseball.  We watch
    it on TV and he dragged out a bat from the closet and started swinging
    it around.  So we put together something less lethal. An empty paper
    towel center stuck into a roll of wrapped Scott toilet paper as a base, 
    then we use a wiffle golf ball and another paper towel center as the bat.
      He loves this and is beginning to hit the ball real good.
    
    Well the other night we had corn for dinner.  And he had his playtex
    bottle also in his high chair.  Next thing we know, he stands up his
    bottle, puts the corn on top of the nipple, and begins swatting it with
    his spoon.  
    
    We tried not to laugh as we are trying to discourage playing with food
    but it was too funny.
    
    Michelle
    

    Baby's not even out of the womb yet and already seems to have a 
    sense of humour; aside from kicking the stuffing out of me, only to
    be incredibly still seconds later when hubby puts his hands on the 
    belly....
    
    I was visiting one of the other new mothers from our facility yesterday
    and met her 3 month old boy.
    She sat him on my lap (what there is left of it!) and wanted to take
    a picture of the two of us.
    "Michael," she said, addressing her son "Why are you frowning like
    that?"
    "because," I laughed, "my baby is kicking him in the back!"
    
    Monica

    The guy in the office next to mine was telling me about his 4 year old
    granddaughter..... He and Sarah had lunch yesterday.  Special treat,
    they went to McDonalds and had a picnic lunch in his car, "nobody else
    can do this, so it is special".. (someday she will get even for Grandpa
    being such a tease)
    
    Anyway... he reached over and took one of her french fries, telling her
    he was just checking to see if they were good for her...  she grabbed a
    handful and asked him to look and make sure they were all good for her. 
    He took one more, and told her that this one wasn't good for her, as it
    has some brown on it, and he proceeded to eat it.... to which little
    innocent Sarah said....
    
    "Was it good for you, Grandpa??"

    Chelsea moved to a 'big girl' bed a couple months ago; we bought her
    two new sets of sheets...one is Minnie Mouse, the other is Sesame
    Street.  I don't think she had ever really noticed sheets on her crib
    before.  Anyway, she calls them her Minnie Mouse/Sesame Street
    "sheeps".  

    Chelsea is 2.2 years old and into the "genitals are interesting" phase. 
    Frequently during bathtime, she will say "I have a penis", and I say
    "Chelsea has a vagina", etc.  Anyway, the other day she was traipsing
    around with my shoes on her feet.  I looked at her and in mock
    exclamation said "Chelsea, what do you have?" (meaning what do you have
    ON .. altho I did not say ON).  She replied, true to form, "Mommy I
    have a vagina!"

    Back to the guy in the next office over....

    His daughter went to the daycare to pick up Sarah, a while back!  And
    this was the conversation... keep in mind, this is a 4 year old!

    S:  Mommy, Jimmy(or whatever the little boys name was) said that foxes
        f**k....

    M:  Sarah, that is not appropriate language.  I do not like to hear
        grownup using that type language, and I surely don't like to hear
        children using it.  AND I ESPECIALLY do NOT like to hear my daughter
        using it.... do you understand this??

    S: Yes........ (several minutes pass).... then I guess *ssh**e is out
       of the question.

    Okay, only one more re Chelsea...  I was laying on the couch reading
    the paper and she walked up to me and pretended she was going to hit me
    in the face (hates it when I read the paper, as anyone w/a two year old
    knows..)  I very sternly looked her right in the eye and said "You do
    NOT hit mommy!"  She very sternly looked right back at me and said "Do
    you understand me?"  Took all my self control to not laugh right out
    loud!

    Ryan is in a phase where some clothes are "powerful" and others are
    not. Sweat pants and sweat shirts are powerful; jeans and most jerseys
    are not. Last night after the umpteenth negotiation session about this
    topic, I explained that Moms and Dads know to choose only clothes with
    "power" in them, and that Moms are pretty powerful themselves. Ryan
    looked at me very carefully and said:
    
    
	"You don't look very powerful to me"
    

    My parents took my 2.5 year old, David, to a local farm over the
    weekend.  There were several chicks hatching from eggs in an incubator,
    and David was watching them with rapt attention.  My mother (he calls
    her "mammy") and David had the following conversation about the chicks:
    
    Mammy: David, look at this egg! A chicken is in there!
    David: No Mammy, breakfast is in there!
    

    After I had my daughter Krystin, as most mothers know, I had to wear a
    pad instead of a tampon.  We were travelling to Upstate New York and
    decided to stop at a Friendly's to eat.  I took my, then 2.5 year old
    daughter into the bathroom with me.  There was only one stall and there
    were people waiting.  When it was our turn we both went into the stall
    where I proceeded to pull down my underwear.  When I did, Alyssa ran
    out from underneath the stall and asked all the women in line:
    
    "Quick, give me a band-aid, mommy's bleeding!"
    
    

    My husband grew up in Tennessee, and from what I'm told, at the time
    all the people down there called vaginas and penis' "Cooly".  So we
    have always told Alyssa that it was called a "cooly".  She knows what
    the real names are, but likes our word better.
    
    One night after work we went down to the local mall.  Alyssa was
    running down the mall and fell.  She got up crying out loud.  I sat her
    on one of the benches where a man was sitting.  I asked Alyssa wear the
    boo-boo was and she said, "My cooly".
    
    The man stood up right in front of Alyssa and said, "hey little girl,
    what's a cooly?"  She stood up, took her fist and punched him right in
    the crotch and said, "That's a cooly.  And it's not funny, it hurts"
    
    I apologized for my daughter's behavior and the man replied, "I'm sorry
    too.  I'm sorry I asked!"

    Hi,
    
    My 4-year old is ready to work here at DEC.  He's starting
    with the managerspeak already...
    
    ...the other day he was building a house out of blocks.  He stopped,
    looked at it, cocked his head and turned to his daycare teacher and
    asked "But Jackie, what about the INFRASTRUCTURE?"
    
    Priscilla
    

    Whenever Michael (age 2.4) gets hurt, we always "kiss it and make it
    well."  So now whenever he has a booboo, he asks whichever one of us is
    nearest to kiss it.
    
    Tonight Pat had him in the bathtub. After bathing him, she left the
    room while he played.  Suddenly she heard him crying, and ran back into
    the bathroom.  Apparently his penis had become irritated for some
    reason, and he had experienced stinging when he urinated.  Crying, he
    said "My wee-wee hurts, Mommie.  Kiss it?"
    
    Pat said she managed to keep a straight face till she got out of the
    bathroom, but nearly choked to death laughing in the hallway...
    
    Steve

    Says my almost 3 yr. old son to his Aunt:
    
    "Follow me.  I wanna show you where I'm hiding."

     I heard this on the comedy channel.  I didn't get the comic's name.


A father-to-be calls the hospital:

Man:   HELP!  MY WIFE'S IN LABOR!  THE PAINS ARE 3 MINUTES APART!  HELP!  WHAT
       DO I DO!?!?

Nurse: Is this her first child?

Man:   NO!  I'M HER HUSBAND, YOU IDIOT!!

    Just to have some stories of older kids...
    
    We have someone come and clean our house every 2 weeks.  My son
    (and actually the whole family) hate it although we realize it's
    important.  He hates the disruption, the noise of the vacuum cleaner,
    the fact that we never can find anything afterwards.  Anyway, one
    day we were looking around for money or a checkbook and my son
    (age 8) said, "What do you need money for?"  We said, "To pay Marge".
    My son looked at me in astonishment and horror and said, "You mean
    it's an EXPENSE as WELL as an annoyance?!!"
    
    And now a different story...
    When my daughter was about 10 she was doing a report on hemophilia
    and wound up getting everything possible on the subject out of the
    library.  One of the books was "Nickolas and Alexandra" about the
    Russian royal family with the son with hemophilia.  The book was
    about 700 pages long.  While it was at home I glanced through it and
    noticed the end, where they graphically describe the entire family
    being shot.  I would never have let her take the book out if I'd
    realized that part, but figured it was safe because she'd never
    get that far.  Anyway, she's reading the book in the car and getting
    into it after the first couple of chapters.  She then said aloud,
    
    "Oh, I hope he doesn't die in the book."  I said, "Should I check
    out all the books you read first so there's nothing in it that
    will upset you?"  She said, "No, it's OK.  But I'm so curious.  I'm
    going to look at the ending."  Then I hear, "Oh" and a long silence.
    Then, "Well at least he didn't die of hemophilia"

   I was using a hand-held electric mixer this morning to make up
   some of the ingredients for macaroni & cheese... my 3 year old came
   in to me and asked me to stop making that noise... then she told me
   that it was making the TV nervous... hmmm...
   
   - Tom
   

    Found out the other day what a visit to the office *really* meant for
    my four-year old, Marc.
    
    I had brough him in for a half day around the Holidays at the end of
    last year, the office had all brought in cookies and other snacks for
    that day - Marc was real happy about that and liked playing with my
    terminal.
    
    The other day he asked "when can I go to work with you again, and have
    all those cookies and stuff?"
    
    JR

    On the way home last Friday AJ and dad stopped at Spags, then at
    Frosty's (the ice cream place right beside it) for a frappe (thick
    shake or what ever your local culture calls it), after inhaling this
    full size frappe all by himself the two of them leave the store, only
    to encounter a bank of soda and juice vending machines.  AJ has this
    "thing" for vending machines and insists he *has* to have a drink, he
    *so* thirsty.  Of cours dad counters by telling him he just had a huge
    drink.
    
    AJ replies to dad "I know dad, that filled up my hollow leg, I need the
    drink to fill up my tummy!"
    
    Ya got to give the kid credit for originality!!
    
    Lyn

    My 3 year old was quietly scribbling on some paper the other
    day.  I asked him what he was making to which he replied
    "I'm not making anything I'm doing my bills!"
    Gotta love kids 
    
    Ann

    
    Our daughter Anusha who is 9 1/2 months, has learned to crawl and has 
    mastered it very well.  She waits for the main door to be opened by
    someone, so that she can slip out into the balcony and down the stairs.
    
    On one such occasions, she crawled out and was half way down the
    balcony when I called out, "Anu, where are you going?"  
                   
    She half turned back and sat crooked on her leg and raised her right 
    hand and waved it from left to right as if to say "Bye mom, I'm jus
    goin' down"; and she turned away and was on her way.
    
    My eyes filled with tears of joy.   God's  finest creation, these
    little kids !!!!
    
    
    
    

    Ryan is 3 and 3/4 yrs. His daycare is all boys, except one 4 yr. old
    girl.  Yesterday, he told me they played house. He was the "boy". I
    asked who Stephanie was. "Oh", he said casually, "she was the dog".
    

    I went to a dance recital last Saturday with my sister and her
    daughter who is almost 5.  When they turned the lights up at
    intermission time, my neice said (very loudly, of course) - "Is
    there where everybody gets up and goes to the bathroom?"   The man
    in front of us really got a kick out of that!
    
    Lila
    

The last one reminds me of my taking my son (about 6 at the
time) to a recital of my manager's manager's son, playing
violin.  My son does like music, and he said he wanted to go, but
I was a bit worried about him fidgeting.  It was very important to
me that he behave appropriately.

Anyway, the concert was terrific, and my son was great.  I showed
him where we were in the program, and could tell he was a bit
restless towards the end.  I pointed to the last piece, and the
violinist played the last piece.  There was a standing ovation,
and the guy came out for a few curtain calls, and then his pianist
came out again with music, and sat down, and he said, "For my
encore, I'll play XXX".  While everything was all quiet, my son
said to me, in a voice loud enough for the people around to hear,
"You said that was the last piece!!!"

    I just reread my note in .56 - what my neice said was "Is THIS
    where...", not "Is there where..." - gees!  Makes a little more sense
    when I type it in correctly!   That's what I get for entering a note
    when I'm tired.   
    

We get a lot of cute remarks from our kids because of their multilinguality.
First, a bit of vocabulary: "full" in French is "plein", "firecracker" is
"petard".

I was discussing with my 11 year old on the weekend his desire to have an
air pistol.  Actually, I was refusing his request.  His friend Liem has an air
pistol along with several other dangerous things.  I said, "Liem also has some
petards."  Markus responded, "Mom, he's got a box of shoe all pleinty of 
petards!"

He didn't like it when we laughed until I complimented him on his 
creativeness :-)

ccb

    Follow-on to .55 - turns out that all the kids fight to be the dog when
    they play house. If they can't settle it, they play house and all the
    kids are dogs!!
    

    actually - the dog's got it easy.  Eat-sleep-do your
    business-whine-sleep-etc.  Unless you're a sheep herder or a
    bloodhound... -;)
    
    Why do the kids want to be the dog?  To crawl on all fours, wiggle
    their butts, and get petted? -:)  
    
    I thought the girls want to be the Mommy and issue a lot of orders.  
    
    I remember a big childhood makebelieve when about 12 kids played Robin
    Hood.  I got assigned to be one of Maid Marian's companion maidens. 
    Was I miserable!  I spent the whole game cooped up on the porch.  I
    wanted to be one of the Merry Men and run around having adventures.
    
    L

    Reminds me of the Christmas plays we have at our church.  The children
    all fight over who gets to be the donkey.  Really.
    
    Steve

    My 9 year old, who is quite naive, with great exclamation, slapped
    himself on the forehead and said, "Mom, I finally came to my
    sentences!"
    
    Of course, I wondered what he had been doing in school all day...
    
    

    This morning I was getting my almost two year old dressed.  I decided
    that he would wear a new pair of sandles.  He had only worn them once
    before and because they were new, they left a small sore on his toe.  I
    wanted to wait until the sore went away before allowing him to wear
    them again.  Well, when I took the shoes out to put them on his feet, he
    drew his little legs up and said, "No, Shoes bite!".  I laughed
    hysterically.
    
    Lori B.

    My 2.5 year old, David, wandered into the bathroom this morning,
    complaining "I can't like that cereal, Mommy".  I was rather puzzled,
    since I hadn't put any cereal out for him. I asked him which cereal, to
    which he replied "In the livingroom".  I had taken in a stray cat last
    night and put food in a clear glass bowl on a window sill to keep it
    away from the dogs.  I usually leave dry cereal in one of those bowls
    for David to munch on...so he naturally assumed that was his cereal.
    When I told him that was cat food, he looked at the cat and said "you
    want some of my cereal, kitty? Yours yucky!"
    Sarah

    We went to my husbands parent lakehouse over Memorial Day Weekend. 
    My Inlaws cat has been missing for over a month now and my MIL was
    asking Brad if he remembered their cat.
    
    Grandma:  Do you remeber mine and Pops cat.
    Brad:     Yea
    Grandma:  Do you remeber his name?
    Brad:(with a very serious look)  Garfield???
    
    My husband is growning a mustache and the other day Brad asked, "Daddy
    are you growing a Mustake?".  I think he may have changed his mind
    about the mustache.
    
    Sasha

    The more I think of this the more afraid I am of Amanda growing up....
    
    Yesterday my two were playing in the backyard (Amanda - 3 and Lauren -5)
    I was looking out the living room window, which runs adjacent to the
    driveway and I saw the neighbor boy (about 7) pushing his bike toward
    the road, then trailing behind him was Amanda with her bike saying
    "It's okay, I can go in the parking lot, we just won't tell my mother"
    So I poked my head out the window and said "you don't have to tell your
    mother I can hear you, now get in the back yard", she dissolved into
    tears and preceded to tell me that I was hurting her feelings, and to
    stop upsetting her.
    
    Later I told my husband, who said we better put bars on her bedroom
    window, cause she'll be the type to climb out after we're asleep.
    
    Roberta

    I heard a little story the other day that made me smile....
    
    A little London boy about three years old was taken to the country for
    the first time.  Looking out of the car window he saw a field of sheep
    grazing.  He turned to his dad and said "Oh look Dad - cloud dogs!"
    
    What a wonderful description of sheep......
    
    Angela

    Nicole (10) and I were in the car this weekend and I heard the opening
    notes of ??? (I've forgotten what it was now, maybe, Ohio) by Crosby,
    Stills, Nash, and Young, the part before the guitar comes in, so when
    the guitar came in, I sang the guitar notes and shock my head with each
    note.
    
    Nicole said, "Dad, why do you listen to such 'Headbanger music'?".
    
    Of course, I know a PARENTING member that called Angry Eyes by Loggins
    and Mesina (sp?), "Drug music".
    
    Bob

    While heading to the supermarket Fridy evening, I had Santana's "Flor
    de Luna" tape on, which has a lot of wild electric guitar playing. Ryan
    (almost 4) commented that "that guy's playing a broken guitar".
    
    Yesterday, I mentioned we'd be going to a pool party next weekend at a
    house with a big pool (inground). Ryan told me he doesn't want to go,
    because he's afraid "I'll go in the big pool and drain"! I finally
    figured out he meant drown!
    

    This weekend I was with my niece, Nicole, soon to be three going on 25
    or so...
    
    She saw a motorcycle going down the street and said "oh, look a
    motorcycle, I have to get me one of those"  She looked at me and said
    "No, I'll get 2" I then said "Why so we can go riding together?" and
    she replied "Yes, we can go buy them next week"  I nearly died.
    
    Then she wanted me to put her down, we were too close to the street so
    I said no you might get hurt by a car and she replied "You mean I would
    get bleed?" (She doesn't get hurt) I said "Yup, Big Time"   She then
    told her mom that if she gets hit by a car she would get Big Time
    Bleed.
    
    I said goodbye sweetie I love you..Her reply Bye Sweetie I Love you
    TOO!
    
    Linda

    The other day in a store we were standing at the register.  My 5 year
    old is wandering around and his little thinking wheels are turning.  He
    calmly asks, "Mom, can I have a motorcycle?"  I calmly reply, "When you
    are 16."  The person in line in front of me shot me a fast glance and
    shrugged his shoulders.  Guess I'm kid-proofed - nothing they say
    rattles me anymore!
    

Bob, I'll have to agree with Nicole!  What a smart cookie....

Kristen

    I didn't see a note for "Parenting Lite," so if I may start
    one here....
    
    4-year-old James is at a stage where he like to classify things
    and do things in sequence.  For example, "Today is Friday morning,
    then it will be Friday night and then it will be Saturday!"
    
    This morning he was in the living room saying, "Bumblebees [he's
    scared of them] eat bumblebee food.  Kitty cats eat kitty cat
    food.  Dogs eat dog food."  I said to him, "Then what do little
    boys eat?"
    
    "Hot dogs and french fries!"
    
    Oh well, that's three of the basic four food groups -- you know,
    fat, sodium, caffeine and preservatives... :-)

    Saturday night when Ryan (almost 4) was getting ready for bed, he and I
    decided to put the bag of Father's Day presents next to his bed, so he
    could bring them out in the morning.
    
    When I went in to check him later, the bag was tucked against him IN
    the bed.... guess he didn't want to forget!
    

    My sister hid her husbands gift in her 3 year olds closet...It was a
    golf bag..well Saturday night Nicole decides that daddy should have his
    present that night, so she drags the bag out and comes down the stairs
    with this huge golf bag (Mind you Nicole weighs 23 lbs and is very
    petite) saying daddy, daddy I got something for you.  I can imagine the
    sight that must have been....smile
    
    Linda

    RE:  -1
    
    boom-boom-boom down the stairs.  -:) -:)
    
    When my daughter climbs stairs (knee-knee or knee-foot) she chants, "Up
    down, up down, up down."
    

    Me to son Daniel (four and a half): "Let me hold your hand
    while we cross the street."
    
    Daniel: "You don't have to - I'm staying inside the white lines."
    
    Me: "But I like to take care of my baby."
    
    Daniel: "I'm not a baby! ... But I was recently."  
    
    Lucy

    We took "dad" to Nickel's for Father's Day dinner yesterday.  for
    dessert the waiter listed the items available.  My 7 year old chose the
    chocolate cake (which is cake covered with chocolate frosting and
    topped with a layr of fudge-like  frosting).  My 5 yr old was intrigued
    by Mud Pie.  "Who would eat mud, mom?" he said with a grin.  I
    explained that it was going to be all chocolate stuff.  We convinced
    him it would be delicious.  When the pie arrived, he took a few bites
    and asked,
    
    
    
    
    
    "Am I truly in chocolate heaven now, mom?"
    
    
    
    

    
    
    Spencer (3 1/2) and his friend Nicholas were playing one day outside. 
    I was nearby and within ear shot...
    
    N - "Wait, I gotta go to the bathroom"
    S - "Nicholas, if you hold the end of your penis, then your pee pee won't
         come out"
    N - "I know"
    
    I cracked up...sooooo, thats how they do it!
    

    
    My daughter Kimberly (5 1/2) and I had a interesting talk the other
    day.
    
    Kim: Mom, in the olden days women didn't wear a bra.
    
    Me: They didn't, what did they wear?
    
    Kim: Coconuts!
    
    
                                 Jill
    
    

    Or maybe seashells.  Brian (5) was pretty intriguiged by the purple
    seashells that Ariel wore in the little mermaid.
    
                                                Tracy

    And speaking of Brian, he's become quite the performer these days.  He
    loves to put on "shows" of dancing, gymnastics, or acrobatics on his
    playset.  He gets an audience together, makes them all sit down around
    him, and launches into a "Ladies and Gentlemen" kind of announcement
    before he starts the show.
    
    He was putting on a dance show the other night, and after getting the
    audience in place and settled down, he started out his "Ladies and
    Gentlemen" speech.  But, whenever he says it, it comes out "laties"
    instead of "ladies".  His dad made the mistake of correcting him this
    time.  Brian got mad, yelled "That's what I said!  Hmphff!  Now I have
    to start all over!" and stormed out of the room.  He poked his head
    back in the room and said, 
    
    	"This is a ferpessional show and there will be NO correcting!!".  

    Andrew (4) this afternoon, asks his mother, "Mum, when you make girl
    babies, do they have holes in them already?"
    
    Worried look from mom, wondering how to handle this question.
    
    "For the earrings", he says.
    
    SIgh of relief from Mom. TUrns out, almost every woman or little girl,
    that Andrew knows has pierced ears, and he doesn't know any men with
    pierced ears...
    
    q
    

    Nick's got an 8-yr-old cousin named Michael, but who's commonly
    referred to as 'Mick'. Lately, Nicholas has been having a hard time
    differentiating his name from his cousin's, so Kathy and I have been
    emphasizing the pronunciation of the first letter of each name. We
    thought he finally had it straight last night...
    
    	Nick: "That's my cousin Mu-Mu-Mu-Mu-Mick!"
     
    	Kathy: "Very good! Now what's your name?"
    
    	Nick: "I'm Mu-Mu-Mu-Mu-Nick!"
    
    	

    Several months ago my daughter was out of preschool with the chicken
    pox and was staying with a friend.  During their much enjoyed stay they
    held the following conversation:
    
    Brittani (4 yrs old) to Barbara:  Why don't you work?
    Barbara (sitter):  Because I am retired.
    Brittani:  Oh, my mom is tired of working, too.  <several seconds pass>
    	       But she still goes.
    
    I thought that was so priceless.  And, I pointed out to my husband that
    even our 4 yr old could see that I needed a well deserved vacation! 
    I'm not sure if that is good or not!
    
    Lisa
    

    The other day, my sitter asked me if I'd take her to her mother's
    house so the kids could spend the day at the pool.  I dropped them off
    and proceeded to say my good bye's to her and the kids.  The following
    conversation is what took place:
    
    Me: "Bye guys, see you all this afternoon."
    
    Kim (sitter): "Bye Lori"
    
    Travis (sitter's son): "Bye Lori"
    
    Kristen (Travis' friend): "Bye Lori"
    
    Shane (my 23 month old son): "Bye Worli"
    
    I just about split my gut!
    
    Lori B.
                   

    Every month when I have my period, my 3.5 year old daughter, Shannon,
    gets hers also.  She tells me that she need to protect her "bleed" and
    runs into the bathroom and gets a pad and places it perfectly in her
    pants.  I have tried to talk her out of wearing one but she comes back
    and states that mommy wears one so Shannon needs it too.  
    
    It was a little embarrassing the morning I realized that she went off
    to the babysitters with her pad on.  I've got the only daughter that
    won't need to be spoken to about periods when she gets older.  I am
    however going broke keeping her supplied.

    I have several 'funnies'
    
    My husband, stepdaughter and father-in-law were eating at a Chinese
    restaurant, and we ordered a Pu-Pu platter, with the flame in the
    middle.  My stepdaughter was about 6, and she asked us how did
    they put the fire out.  I said they probably set it in the sink and
    poured water on.  My father-in-law (who is a Forestry-type engineer
    with Union Camp) asks her what other ways can a fire be put out.  She
    replied 'you just turn off the gas!'
    
    When my nephew was 3, he had a hard time saying certain letters.  His
    k's came out as p's.  My husband and I were leaving there house one
    night, and Casey ran up saying 'Uncle David, let me give you a hug and
    a piss', to which my husband replied, I'll take the hug, and pass on
    the piss.
    
    When another nephew was learning his ABC's, he would proudly sing:
    A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, Me, J......
    
    Teaching Sunday School, we were talking about gardens.  I asked which
    of the children had gardens, and one little girl raised her hand.  I
    asked her what did she grow in her garden.  She replied 'carrots,
    beans, corn, and smashed potatoes'.
    
    
    Angie 

     This isn't really "funny" in the sense that the other notes in here are,
but there really isn't another topic to put it in.  It falls into the "Now
what caused you to say THAT?" category.
     My son (almost 9) was at a baseball camp last week.  Since Friday was
a holiday, I went and watched.  My wife came over, and the three of us ate
lunch together.  As we ate, we were talking to the pitching coach, who Gary
had really come to like.  We were making light conversation, about the
weather, when (literally, as it turned out) out of the blue, Gary turned to
Eric (the pitching coach) and asked



"Do you believe in God?"

Since that is not exactly the type of question that pitching coaches are
commonly asked, the three of us said "Huh?" and Gary repeated the question. 
Eric responded, that yes, he believes in God.  We asked Gary what caused him
to ask, and when we talked about the weather, he had looked up at the sky,
and . . . So of course the train of thought was quite explainable, but it
sure caught us off guard.

Clay

well, in this case, our neighbor has the funniest kid......

5-year-old Becky was visiting and Maggie (4.5) was telling her all
about the new breakfast bar that I had just installed in the kitchen 
(what a way to spend July 4th :-( ) while my wife was pouring them some
juice.  Becky said, "Let's sit at the bar and have a drink!"

    Last Wednesday was my birthday and for about two whole days beforehand
    my son's sitter kept trying to teach my son (23 months old) to say
    "Happy Birthday", he wanted no part of it.  Well Monday I was lying on
    the couch watching t.v. when Shane walked up to me, handed me one of
    his favorite toys and said, "Mommy, appy dirday!" he then proceeded to
    grin from ear to ear.  I gave him the biggest hug and kiss, it just
    melted me!
    
    Lori B.

Kathleen (4) was explaining the story of the Disney-version Jungle Book to me
and told me that the tiger hates people.  I asked her "Why is that?" and she 
explained:

	"He fears man's gum and man's fire!"

    
    I was scolding Kati tonight for sassing me, and said something like
    
    "... and you had better stop talking to your mother like that, young
    lady"
    
    to which she replied:
    
    "I'm *not* a LADY!"  (again, in a sassy voice)
    
    As much as I wanted to continue the discipline, my husband and I both
    burst into tears!

    We were watching tv in our finished cellar when a tiny baby mouse
    fell from the ceiling!  I screamed, and grabbed Christopher (2 years).  
    While running upstairs I yelled "I'll get a box and we'll put
    him in it" to my husband.  Christopher started crying fearfully and 
    saying "No Box!  No Box!" 
    
    

    My mother realated this story to me.  One day the week before the 4th
    of July, My brother and his son (Joshua 2 1/2 ) dropped by my Mother's house
    to borrow a tool or something. One of the Real Estate companies had put
    little flags in everyones front yard and Josh wanted to play with it
    but Mom said no.  He went to the closet where he knows the big flag is
    kept and insisted on getting it out to put it up outside the house.
    
    Of course, it was much too big for him to carry on his own, so my
    brother helped him.  They were going thru the house with my brother
    carrying the top end of the pole and Josh carrying the other end.  Josh
    turned just as they were going out the front door and said,
    
    			"We're men."
    

    I've got another not so young kid story.
    
    My stepdaughter is home from college for the summer, and spends most
    evenings at our house. The other night at supper, her dad was picking
    on her without mercy.
    
    She finally had had enough and said "Shut up!". Then she realized she
    had just told her father to shut up and quickly added "Sir!"!
    
    Cracked us up! He did deserve it though! She's a great kid!
    
    Y 

    My 4-year-old is crazy about Jungle Book.  His younger brother loves to
    do everything David does.  One day David was singing Kaa's song "Trust
    in Me".  Gregor chimed in with his own interpretation:

	"Dust Me"

    My 3-year-old, Paige, also has an interesting twist on some songs and
    rhymes:
    
    Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
    How does your garden grow?
    With Taco Bells and...
    
    Aruba, Jamaica,
    Oh, I want to take ya;
    Computer, Bahama...
    
    Definitely a 90s kid!
    
    -Tracy
    
    

    My almost-two daughter and I were working on the pronunciation of a
    word.  We went back and forth a few times, but she still got the
    proununciation wrong.  She turned to me and said:
    
    
    "I SAID that."
    
    
    This is the same child who screams and points at the refrigerator.
    One evening after dinner she was eager to open a present sent by my
    parents.  Finally she got impatient and said:
    
    "I want my prebent."
    
    Five minutes later she screams and points at the cookie can.
    
    Sigh -;)

    Nick (2.75) was chillin' in the family room the other day, casually
    playing with his wooden alphabet puzzle. He kept placing the letters
    between his toes, lifting them and then letting them fall. As he was
    picking up a yellow "m", Kathy happened to walk by and asked him to 
    name the letter he had selected, to which he promptly replied:
    
    			"The McDonalds' letter!"
    
    

Juli has started calling us by our first names, instead of "Mommy" or "Daddy".

This morning she said "where's Daddy"?  I said "probably downstairs".  She said
"Daddy ... Daddy ...".  No response.  Then at the top of her lungs she
yells "J-I-M!" ... to which Jim said "what!"

Cracked me up.  I guess she figures Jim is more responsive to "Jim" (which
I use) than "Daddy" (which she uses).

Over the weekend we joined several friends at the Douglas State Park (for
a picnic and swimming) and Juli kept calling me "Dottie"  (probably because
the other kids were?) ... I told her I was "Mommy" to her, so she started 
calling me "Mommy Dottie"  (geeesssh).

Dottie

    I asked David  (2.5 years old) one day where he'd like to have lunch.  
    He replied:
    
    "Old MacDonald's, but I don't want a pig".  
    
    Guess he got the fast food restaurant and nursery song a little confused?
    Sarah

    
    My kid isn't funny yet (only 6.5 months) but my sister's kids are!
    
    My sister has a great photo of her older son's (5 yrs old) soccer team 
    on the soccer field in action  ;-) .  

    Actually, it seems that on the very *first* day of soccer the coach led
    all the players out onto the field and placed them in their positions,
    and told them to stay there.

    Needless to say, when the action started....none of the players moved!
    They had all taken him literally and were glued to their spots, watching 
    as the other team scored a goal!  The kids all have these quizzical looks
    on their faces (in the photo) like "Is this the way you play this game?"

    That day the coach learned that he needed to take a bit more time and 
    care when giving instructions to the kids.

    Cheers,
                                 
     Carol
    

    
    My daughter is also a victim of fast food restaurants!!
    
    You remember the Burger King motto..."Burger King where kids are king!" 
    Well I had said this a couple of times when we drove by a Burger King,
    and Shannon (2.9) loved it....
    
    Well the other day we drove by a McDonalds and she shouted, 
    	"McDonalds...where kids are donalds!"
    
    Its amazing to hear the things they come up with!!

    Kathy's having some car trouble, so Nick (2.75) and I dropped her off
    at work on our way to daycare. As Kath got out of the car, she leaned
    into the back seat to kiss Nick and reminded him: "Be nice to your
    friends today!", to which he replied:
    
    	"OK...you be nice to *your* friends!"
    

My brother has 5-yr-old twin boys and they are on the same little league team.
One was playing catcher and the other center field.  During the middle of the
game, the pitcher was getting ready to pitch, and Ross (the catcher) quietly
left his post, wandered across the field to center field, and started talking
to Paul.  Nobody knew what was going on and his parents were puzzled.

A few seconds later he wandered back to his post and squatted down to catch
the ball.  It turned out that he happened to notice, between plays, that his
glove - exactly identical to his brother's - said "PAUL" on it, so he went to
trade with Paul!

The game went on as scheduled.....

    
    The other week at the dinner table my sister looked over at her
    4 year old daughter and said (to be complimentary!)...
    
    "Look everyone, doesn't Jill have big beautiful green cat eyes".  
    
    To which Jill promptly returned the compliment (sort of) by saying, 
    
    "And yes, doesn't Mommy have beautiful brown dog hair!"
    
    
    

    .110 reminded me of my neice who is 5.   She was "fixing" her
    mom's hair with lots and lots of little barettes.  When she 
    finished, she looked at her mom and said "Oh Mommy, you are so
    beautiful, just like a doggie"!!!  Cracked me up!
    
    Lila
    

   We spent a lot of time outside this past weekend, as you might have
   also.. my oldest (3.5 yrs) is very used to using having sun screen put
   on - they are all a bit fair skinned.  So, as we were getting ready,
   she tells us - 
   
   We can't go outside without putting on our sun scream first.
   
   Can't you just see the sun sitting back in the sky looking down on us
   playing outside and, in a Mister Bill voice saying  "Ohhh nooooo..."
   
   :-)
   
   - Tom

    
    We were at a mass yesterday for my mother-in-law that passed away 
    last month, and the priest was giving a sermon, and started talking
    about referring to god as "our father" etc... and he got to a part
    where he says 
    
    "just like a new father looks forward to hearing his childs first words
     which are usually "da da"....
    
    he starts to continue, and from the front row you hear nice and loud
    
    "DA DA"
    
    from my 9 mos old!!!!  The priest turns to us and says "yes, just like
    that!!" with a big smile!  
    
    Everyone in church chuckled! 
    It was one for the books!  
    
    Chris
    
    

    Whenever it rains my 3 year old daughter likes me to drive through big
    puddles because she loves to see and hear the water splash on the side
    of the car. Well, a few days ago we were coming home in the rain and we
    went through a few pudlles but then for quite a while there were no
    large puddles so I kept telling her that there are none. Finally she
    got realy fed up and said:
    	" We have to buy a big puddle then"
    
    I laughed all the way home.
    

    Yesterday, my son Shane (who turned 2 on Monday) was wearing a t-shirt
    that I got him at Chuck E. Cheese.  It has a picture of one of those
    ball pits on it, with Chuck E. Cheese and some other character playing
    in the ball pit.  Well this is the following conversation that took
    place, I nearly busted a gut!
    
    Me: Shane, who's on your shirt?
    Shane: Chuck E. Cheese
    Me: And what's he playing with?
    Shane: Chuck E.'s balls
    
    Lori B.

    We were eating dinner last evening and David (2.5) bounded off his seat
    and ran for the bathroom.  My husband called to him "Hey, where are you
    going?" David waddled out of the bathroom with his pants around his
    ankles, held up the  index finger on his right hand, and stated:
    
    "I'll be right back after these messages".  
    
    Definitely too much Saturday morning cartoons!
    Sarah

    On Sunday we took a trip to the beach with my daughter (almost 2).  She
    got very impatient toward the end of the trip but managed to avoid bad
    behavior.
    
    When we parked the car, my husband and I quarreled about how far down
    to leave the windows cracked open.  I wanted more, he was afraid
    someone would break into the car.  After a little while, we hear from
    the back seat - 
    
    Big deal.
    

A friend of ours was telling us about his 3-year-old niece.  He was counting
the numbers wrong to see if she would pick it up.  After couple times, she 
didn't want to play the game anymore and went to her Mother and said, 
"Is there something wrong with Uncle Bruce?  He doesn't even know his numbers!"

Another uncle of this 3-year-old has long hair.  The first time they met, 
she walked up to him and asked, "Are you a boy or a girl?".  He replied, 
"A girl".  She walked around him and looked him over, probably thinking 
that answer didn't sound right, then she asked, "Do you go to the 
bathroom standing up or sitting down?".  

    Last Saturday I took Brad to Six Flags and we were waiting in line for
    the Carousel and, we thought we would be able to get on but they
    stopped letting people in when they go to us.  Brad looked at me and said,
    "Give Me A Break, Man".  
    
    This was the first waiting in line experience for Brad.
    
    Sasha

    Last night my youngest (Evan age 2) was fussing while I was fixing
    dinner.  He kept saying he wanted things and I kept shooing him out of
    the kitchen.  Finally after about 15 minutes of asking for juice I
    turned around to him and looked (he had his hands on his hips) and as
    they say...out of the mouths of babes...he says "I know mom...I'm too
    bossy!!"  
    
    Well, needless to say I almost fell out on the floor because I was
    laughing so hard.  I guess he's not a baby anymore.
    
    Lillian

While shopping for a present for a niece at Learning Express, we let Melissa
(age 2) play with Play Mobile trains in the corner.  After several minutes
she noticed stuffed Babar on the shelf, exclaimed "Mein Babar!" and grabbed
it off the shelf.  She looked at me and I told her to show mommy.  She walks
over, to where my wife was paying up, tugs at her shirt and stands there
holding Babar in bear hug and look like "Just you try to take him away from
me!".

Since Babar is her favorite character (and since I'm such a softy), she now
has her very own stuffed Babar.

Dick

    While driving to daycare this morning, Nick was in a singing mood, and
    made up an abbreviated version of the 'Alphabet Song'. 
    
    	Nick: "A-B-C-D-E-F-G, next time won't you sing with me?"
    
    	Me: "Buddy, you left out the middle part! What about H-I-J...?"
    
    	Nick: "OK...H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P, next time won't you sing with me?"
    
    

    As we were passing the Pepperel airport we stopped and pointed out a
    parachuter to my 2 year old son.  We watched him go from a small spec
    to a real person landing on the ground.  The next time he and I passed
    that place he got all excited and yelled:     "Wheres Superman?"

    While we were at the local park last week, my daughter (almost 2) was
    invited to play with some older (about 3-4 years) children in the log
    cabin house.
    
    First thing said to her by her play mom, who was seated: 
    
    "Please don't bother me now, this is the first chance I've had to sit
    down all day!!!"

    
      My friend got a new car recently and my son Stephen told me it was
      a sports car.  Then he said it must have taken him a long time to
      put it together, right mom!
    
      Apparently he thought cars came as kits and you build them.  He must
      be hanging around with Dad too much, building model airplanes!  

    
    
    	I was driving home from work yesterday and had just picked up 3.5
    yr.old son from daycare.  He kept talking to himself in a low voice and
    I couldn't hear a word.  I finaly said, "speak up please, I can't hear
    you"  He said, "Mommy, tis is a private conversation!!"  And he resumed
    his conversation.

    Yesterday, my husband told our 3 year old daughter Avanti that he will
    be going to New Jersey on Wednesday and that he will be gone for 3
    days. Replying to that Avanti says:
    
    "OK. I am in charge. I will take care of Mommy, Neel (her 3 month old
    brother), Ajjoo (grandpa in our native langauge) and Amma (grandma in
    our native language)."
    
    Guess, I can relax with her at the helm. NOT!
    
    Shaila

    
    Last week I took my 20 month old daughter, Lauren, to the library.
    
    	
    A woman with a LOT of makeup was working at the reference desk in
    the childrens section.  When Lauren saw her she ran towards her and said:
    
    	L:  "Look Mama, clown!"
    
    	M:  "No Lauren, that's a lady"
    
    	L:  "Look Mama, clown lady! "
    
    From the mouths of (loud) babes...
    

    After my 3 year old daughter dressed this morning, I noticed she had
    put her shoes on the wrong feet (this is very common with those
    particular shoes;  I know she's tired of me reminding her to put
    them on correctly).  This was the resulting converstaion..
    
    Me: "Stephanie, you have your shoes on the wrong feet, sweetie."
    
    Steph:  Standing, she crosses left foot over right, points at her
         feet and says "No I don't!"
    
    Can't argue with that!
    
    					Mair
    

    On the way home from daycare the other evening with Nick (almost 3),
    we passed a bulk milk carrier on it's way back to Vermont. 
    
    Nick: "Daddy, whats that truck?"
    
    me: "It's a *milk* truck."
    
    Nick: "Oh...Daddy, where's the juice truck?"

    Avanti (3 yr) likes to comment on the way I dress. Yesterday morning I
    could not find my purple earrings so I proceeded to wear my silver
    ones. In the car the conversation so:
    
    Avanti (with a frown on her face): Mommy, you are wearing those
    earrrings?
    
    Mommy: Yes, why? Don't you like them?
    
    Avanti: No. (still frowning).
    
    Mommy: Why not?
    
    Avanti: You should wear purple ones.
    
    Mommy: OK, I will remember that next time I wear purple clothes.
    
    Avanti: No, after you drop me in school, go home and change your
    earrings, OK?
    
    Mommy: Yes. Ma'am.
    
    Sigh! I can see what will happen when she becomes a teenager :-)
    
    Shaila

    I put David (2.5 years old) to bed last night around 8:00.  Usually
    he's a geat sleeper, but he has been using stalling tactics for the
    last couple of weeks, usually "I want a drink" or "I have to go to the
    bathroom".  Last night was a little different.  I saw him creep out of
    his room, blanket, pacifier, and cookie monster in hand, and head into
    my room.  A couple of minutes later I went in to my room to find him
    curled up in my bed.
    
    me    : "Dave, what are you doing in my bed?"
    David : "Just getting some peas and quiet" 
    	
    

	This happened to the brother of my friend (in Cincinnati). He has a 2.5 
	year old daughter. 

	He has a colleague at work, called Bob Cohen, whom he dislikes very
	much. So, for a few days, he would complain to his wife,  "Bob Cohen
	is a Jerk!" When he would be real upset, he would say "Bob Cohen is a 
	sick man!"

	After a few days when things have calmed down a bit, when he gets back 
	home, his daughter asks, "Dad, how is Bob Cohen keeping?". 

	F: "Er, fine. Why do you ask?"

	D: "Because you said, he was sick. Is he alright now?"

	F: "Oh! Yeah, I think he is quite fine now."

	D: "That's good! I'm glad, because, he is *such a* jerk!"

	

    My brother was watching a freight train pass while sitting 
    with his step-daughter.  
    
    He told her what each car contained.  When he pointed out a large
    container car and said, "This car has syrup," his step-daughter
    pointed to the next car and said, "And this car has the pancakes."
    
    L

    Ryan and I were talking the other day about the Boy Scouts. Now 4, he
    asked me if he could be a Boy Scout when he gets older. I said "yes, if
    you want to".  To which he asked:
    
    
    " and would I have to live with you still?"
    

    Adam, the 3-year-old son of a friend of mine, made a book in preschool
    describing himself and his world. All the other kids dictated things
    like "I have a little brother named Mike" and "My sister is older than
    me", etc. Adam's book describes him and his home as expected, but when
    he gets to his baby sister he says, "I don't know who Sarah is, but she
    lives in our house." 
    
    Lucy

    Last night my nine year old looks at me and asked the following
    incomplete sentence...
    
    	Dad do you know anything
    
    	After a pause he then completed the question.
    
    

    I had need to call home yesterday, and my 4 year old has recently
    taken to answering the phone ... absolutely no fear ...
    
    Anyway, Rowena answers the phone and has a giggle 
    
    "Hi Daddy, do you want to talk to Mummy?" 
    
    "Yes please" 
    
    "OK, when I'm finished talking to you!"
    
    
    Sheesh !

    My In-Laws are getting ready to go back to Florida for the winter and
    they came over the other night for dinner.  My 5 year old pipes up out
    of no where... Papa don't go back to Florida, it's a wreck cause of
    Hurricane Andrew and now it's in your Golf Course!  (The Gulf...!)
    
    

    My 2-1/2 year old son recently cheerfully and happily described our
    impending plane landing thusly:
    
    Airplane gonna fall in de dirt!
    
    Luckily he was wrong...
    
    Steve

    We don't live near our families and keep a lot of pictures out so Gina
    (2yrs 3mos) can get to "know" them and at least recognize them.
    
    The other day she and her father were going over the tribe.  
    
    D: Who's this?
    G: Aunt JoJo
    D: Who's this?
    G: Uncle Bill
    D: Who's this?
    G: Grape Grandma
    
    judy
    

    I have straight hair, my husband has curly hair, and our 2 year old 
    son Johnathan has inherited the wonderful curly hair.  Our nephew, who 
    is 5, overheard someone saying that Johnathan had gotten his curly hair
    from his daddy.  Later, the nephew came up to me and asked, "Why did
    Johnathan's daddy curl his hair?"
    
    

    Yesterday, I was up for several hours before I took my morning shower
    and Nicole told me that I looked tired.  I asked her why, since it was
    almost noon.  She said, "Because your hair looks tired."

    The boys and I watched a show a few weeks ago, and they mentioned
    "mooning".  Well, the other night we were all horsing around and James (7) 
    said, "I'm going to moon you!" and jumped up and pulled down his jeans....
    
    
    
    
    but left his underwear up!!!!!
             

    Sounds like a shy one to me.  :-))))

    My 6-year old Maresa started first grade this year, and this past
    Tuesday there was a luncheon for grandparents, or "someone special," if
    a grandparent wasn't available. Since my mother was planning to attend,
    I decided not to go.
    
    As I was leaving for work that morning, Maresa asked me, "Mommy, will
    you come to school for lunch today?"
    
    I replied, "No, honey, I have to work. Anyway, that lunch is for
    grandparents."
    
    Maresa was quick to correct me. "It's for grandparents or *someone
    special*, and you're someone special, Mommy!"
    
    
    Sure started my day off right.
    
    
    
    Then, when I got home, my mom relayed a conversation that she and
    Maresa had after school.
    
    Mom asked her, "What would you do without your grandmother?"
    
    Maresa thought for a minute, then matter-of-factly said, "Well...I
    wouldn't be a granddaughter!"
    
    
    Oh, these priceless moments!
    
    Catherine
    

    The other day, Nicole brought my wife a cookie and me a rice crispies
    square treat, from the bake sale at school.  That night, Lisa asked me,
    "Aren't you curious as to how she got the money for those?"  We had to
    take over her allowance jar last year, as she was spending it without
    asking.  I said, "No", thinking that Lisa had given her some money from
    her allowance jar.  It turns out, Nicole has sold her fruit rollup from
    her lunch bag to another student and used that money to buy the
    goodies.
    
    Bob

My daughter Molly started Kindergarten this year.  On the second day I asked 
her how her school day went - she answered:

	"Oh, the same as always!" 

    Ilona, 23 months, was sitting in her high chair eating supper
    (heated up leftovers) with me.  Her Daddy was restless, couldn't decide
    what he wanted, and was puttering around at the counter.  Ilona shouted
    at him, "SIT DOWN!"
    
    What goes around comes around. . .
    
    L

A friend of mine (age 30) was talking with my daughter Michelle (age 2.5).
They went through all the standard questions:  What's your name?  How old
are you? etc.  After asking my daughter's age, my friend tried to convince her
that she (my friend, that is) was two also.  Michelle looked at her suspiciously
for a moment, and then exclaimed:

	"No!.....You're THREE!"

    Ryan, age 4, told his sitter the other day that all the dinosaurs are
    in heaven and God is teaching them to behave so they won't both people.
    
    

Last night I made waffles for supper with my German waffle iron.  We couldn't
find the German to Swiss adapter plug so I had to construct one out of wire
and plug ends, typically a job for my husband who was travelling.  Needless
to say, it took me a while and Dirk (14) and Mark (11) were starving and making 
jokes about me going to blow up the house etc.  We had a little physics lesson 
in the process, complete with circuit diagram. I constructed a beautiful 
grounded adapter and successfully served the waffles.

I was joking with Dirk afterwards saying how many of his friends' mothers
did he think could do this and doesn't he have a great Mom, etc. etc. (I love
to tease him like this) and isn't he glad that he has me for his Mom and
not some other one.  His response was, "I didn't have much choice, did I?"

ccb

    Marc and I had to go to the UPS office yesterday afternoon to ship a
    box.  They have a VERY LARGE (as in, maybe 6 feet wide) roll of white
    paper hanging on the wall that people typically use to stuff inside
    boxes.  When Marc saw the paper he said:
    
    Mom, what's all this toilet paper doing here? :-)

    My goddaughter (5 1/2) is going thru a very bratty stage, her mother 
    doesn't know what to do with her.....conversation last nght...
    
    Abbie "Why is THAT on my wall, anyway?"  pointing to cross
    
    Dana "So God can watch over you and help you to be a good girl"
    
    Abbie "Well is isn't working very well, is it?"
    

    Chris (2 years old) and I met the mailwoman yesterday at 
    our mailbox and talked with her.  I told him how some people
    have a mailman, but we have a mailwoman.   When daddy got home 
    he kept talking about the:    man-lady.  

    Last night I was giving Neil (2) a bath.  We built a long pipe out of
    the pipe pieces, and I was pouring water into the funnel at the top
    while Neil was controlling the end of the pipe to fill up containers.
    
    He moved the end so that the water was flowing down the slide of his
    Fisher Price marina.  Because of the way he was sitting, the water was
    coming off of the slide and hitting his penis.  I guess he decided that
    this felt pretty good, because then he moved the end of the pipe so
    that it was right over his penis.  He had me keep pouring the water
    down the pipe for a few minutes (and was not happy when I tried to 
    stop!) and got an erection.  He touched it, and looked up at me in
    wonder and said "hot, hot".  Well, at least we know that that piece of
    equipment works!
    
                                                Tracy

    Tracy,
    
    	My son, Tyler, is 3.5 and likes to sleep with his hand in his
    underwear.  When I check on him at night, he sometimes has a smile on
    his face.   Hmmm, his dad used to do that too.
    
    
    Boys will be Boys
    
    
    Virginia

    Marc, 4 1/2:

    He and I watching a cartoon - I commented that the hero was going to
    help out, the hero then promptly fell off a cliff, Marc says:

    "Maybe not!"


    He and I discussed storms a couple of weekends back, including "tornado
    alley" - the other day my wife and he were looking at the gathering of
    some storm clouds - he asked: "Mom, is there a place called Hurricane
    Avenue?"

    JR   

    My grandson, Andrew, is almost 3.  I was visiting and he was itchy.  As
    my daughter was feeding my new grandaughter, I thought I'd calm Andrew
    down by telling him a story.  Usually, I start the story and then ask
    him something which adds to the tale.  The last time I did this, I used
    the name Arthur for the boy in the story.
    
    So, I started a story about a boy playing soccer.  I asked him the
    boy's name and he said, "Atur".  Okay, while playing soccer, "Atur"'s
    dog ran up and took the ball.  What's the dog's name?  "Pinko".  By
    now, my daughter is silently splitting her sides while still feeding the
    baby.  
    
    "Pinko" chewed the ball and swallowed it.  What should "Atur" do?
    
    Andrew thought for a moment, then said:  "Throw Pinko in the road and
    watch a car run over him."
    
    Andrew must really love his soccer ball, huh?
    
    Lee

    I'm heading off to Cancun, Mexico next week, and have been preparing my
    son (2.75 years old) for my departure.  He's been repeating the phrase 
    "Cancun Mexico" pretty well lately, but last night it was a little confused:
    
    Me   :    David, where am I going next week?
    
    David:    Racoon Restaurant!
    
    Sarah

    Racoon Restaurant - Ha ha ha.  :*)
    
    Andrew's favorite restaurant is E I Donald's.   I couldn't figure it
    out, but his mother told me it's from Ole McDonald -  "EIEIO" Donald!
    
    Lee

    
    
    Tyler calls it "McDickDonalds".   go figure!

My husband is a very creative individual, who tries to make horrible
tortures, like hairwashing, as fun as possible.

At bathtime, he has her stand and hold the soapdish with both hands, while he
soaps her and washes her hair.  *Then*, he tells her to "swim like a goldfish!"

She throws herself belly down in the water, splashing water everywhere,
and wiggles all over, while screaming at the top of her lungs, "I swim like a 
goldfish! I swim like a goldfish!"

    The other day my son was asking a bunch of "Can I do..." questions.  I
    kept saying no to each request.  Finally he sat back and said,
    
    "I guess you're just a no-no kind of girl, heh?"
    
    -sandy
    

    Just another edition, to the McDonald's name.
    
    My niece who is 2.6 years old.  Actually calls it "Ole McDonald's".
    
    
    Leslie 

    David calls it "Donald's," meaning Donald Duck.
    
    --bonnie

    Yesterday, my grandson Andrew was visiting, as was my cousin's son
    Ethan.  They are both about 2 1/2.
    
    I told Ethan I have a secret, and whispered in his ear "I love you."
    
    I asked if he wanted to tell me a secret.  He got right to my ear and
    whispered, "Secret".
    
    Later, I got Andrew, and whispered to him, "Got tell Memere "Happy
    Birthday, Memere.""  He went right over and whispered, "Happy Birthday,
    Memere."
    
    Amazing how they sometimes do exactly as you say, even what you didn't
    mean to say.
    
    Lee

    Saturday morning Tyler and I were at the store doing the usual "at the
    store" things when anothe woman went by with a toddler about the same
    age as Tyler.  Her daughter was singing "Ole McDonald".  The woman and
    little girl rounded the corner of the isle when she reached the "E I E
    I O" part.  Well, Tyler decided to help her out and yelled it.  I
    swear, the whole store got quiet.  Then Tyler yelled, " I guess no one
    can take a joke!"
    	
    The best part of this is my son had on my sunglasses the whole time and
    looked sooo inocent.
    
    Virginia

    Avanti and I were at the grocery store yesterday. She wanted to carry
    my old purse along with her things in it. So each of us had a purse
    dangling on our shoulders. When time came to pay for the groceries she
    started to open up her purse saying "Mommy I will pay for it!" She
    could not get her purse open - I said "That's ok. I have it covered
    this time". Avanti replies "OK, Mommy. Thank you Mommy. I will pay next
    time."
    
    The people around us were smiling at her and I was beaming at my
    previous little helper. What a moment. Not to mention she looked sooo
    cute with her new haircut given by yours truly. But then again I am
    biased, right?
    
    Shaila

    We were all in the car Saturday (2 boys in the back) heading somewhere.
    Ryan (5) was trying to tell Kyle (7) something, but Kyle wouldn't
    acknowledge that he was listening (don't you love 7).  Anywho, Ryan
    kept saying Kyle's name to get his attention.  When he wasn't getting
    anywhere he hollered LOUD..."Hello, anyone home?"
    
    Where do they get this stuff??
    
    -sandy
    

    I had heard this one before, so decided to see what my 11 year old's
    reaction would be to this ... turns out she's a smart-alec too ...
    
    Jenny:   Can I have so and so ?
    
    Me:      No.
    
    Jenny:   Why not ?
    
    Me:      What part of the word NO don't you understand ?
    
    Jenny:   The "O".
    
    
    
    Sheesh!
    

    This morning Alex was pleased that her hair was falling smoothly:
    "Look Mummie, my cow tongue is getting better!"
    
    Leslie_who_has_a_few_cow_"tongues"_herself_today

    Avanti (3.3 yrs old) decided that she wanted to sit in Mommy's lap
    while she ate breakfast. So while she did just that Mommy tried to get
    her (Avanti's) shoes on. It was quite awkward since she kept losing her
    balance. So I said "Well, I think I tie your shoelaces after you are
    done with breakfast"
    
    Avanti: Mommy, first you want to put on my shoes, now then later and
    then now and then later...Ha ha ha ....
    
    Mommy:  Mommy is pretty funny, huh?
    
    Avanti: Well..you know.. that's the way it is.
    
    I wonder where she heard that one :-)
    
    Shaila
    
    The Funny Mommy

    Yesterday Jason (4) came home from Nursery school and wanted to tell me
    "Miss Muffet" that he had learned in school.  His version goes like
    this;
    
    Little Miss Muffet
    sat on a tuffet
    eating her curves away ...
    
    that could explain it!
    

    Last night my husband was showing Michael, our 5 year old,
    old photos of himself when he was about Michael's age. 
    
    One photo showed my husband as a boy holding a toy trumpet.
    Michael's eyes lit up and he asked if he could see dad's
    trumpet.  Mark explained that the trumpet was long gone,
    as that was many (35) years ago. Michael's mouth dropped
    in disbelief. 
    
    Next he spotted my husband in a cool snow suit. Michael 
    wanted it. Mark explained that after he outgrew it, his mom 
    gave it away. Michael began to pout.
    
    Looking dejected with tears in his eyes, Michael pointed to 
    a real French Horn in another photo and said "and I suppose 
    you don't have that anymore either." Mark explained that it
    belonged to the school and he had to give it back when he was
    done using it. With that, Michael threw his hands up and walked
    away.
    
    We all had a good laugh after we calmed Michael down.
    
    What's funny is that several weeks ago while arranging his baseball
    cards in his new card binder, I told him he needs to take real good
    care of them so he can give them to his children when he's grown.
    He thought that was the most absurd thing he'd ever heard. He said
    he wasn't going to have children. When I inquired about what he was
    going to be when he grew up, he said "a father". Go figure.  

    The other day, from out of the blue, Stephanie (3 years old) asked me:
    
    "Mommy, it's not nice to throw chairs through windows, is it?"
    
    That caught me TOTALLY off guard, but I answered no.  I asked her
    why she asked that, but got no particular answer.  Later, Wayne
    remembered that there was a scene in 101 Dalmations where a chair
    is thrown through the window.  Funny what they remember.
    
    					Mair
    

   Along the movie track...
   
   The other day we were talking about movies that were coming out in
   video soon... one of the movies that was discusses was a new movie
   about culinary arts...
   
   

   Beauty and the Feast!  (according to my 3.5 yr old)

   - Tom
   

    My daughter, Nithya Jesuraj, is in 2nd grade.  In her class, they
    talked about elections and the presidential candidate and also gave a
    chance for the children to vote, just for fun.  Yesterday, she told me
    about that and asked me
    
    " Ma, Who are you going to vote for , George Bush or Bill Clinton?"
    
    I gave my answer as nobody. She wasn't convinced with my answer and she
    said "Don't you want to vote for George Bush, as he is our president
    now, I am going to vote for him".  
    
    I had a good laugh at this.

    The reasoning power of my almost 3-year old never ceases to amaze me. 
    We had a discussion a couple of nights ago about saying "poop" and "pee
    pee".  As an example, he called one of his friends a "Pee pee head".
    I told him it was OK to say those words in the bathroom if he
    was on the toilet, or if he had to go to the bathroom, but any other
    use would be one of the "bad words".   
    He managed to translate that conversation with me into : 
    
    "Mommy said I can say bad words in the bathroom".
    

    Brian recently lost his second tooth.  He was talking about it with
    some visitors Wednesday night, and showing him his new "hole".  Then
    he went off to get the tooth to show them that too.  As he came back
    into the room he said, "I've really lost two teeth, but I already sold
    the other one to the tooth fairy".
    
                                            Tracy

    Me: "Do you think it's chilly in here?"
    
    Daniel (almost 5): "Not prehistorically."
    
    Well, that sure answered *that* question.
    
    Lucy

Last night I drove past the local "Correctional Facility" with my kids and 
my 5 year old, Molly, asked some questions.  We got into a discussion of
prisons and levels of crime.  My son chimed in with some names of prisons
like Sing Sing.  

And Molly says - "Yeah and don't forget the Big House".

    
     
     A few years back I was taking my 5 year old sister to the zoo,So the 
    night before She asks "will we go if it rains" I I said " It wount rain"
    "How do you know" she asks,"Because I'm God""Haaaaaaaa you can't be
    god,because dad is god" This really had me laughing "hows dad god?"
    
    Her answer
    
    "Because that song at church goes....Our father,who art in heaven...
                                                               

    Due to constant swimmers ear, Nicole hadn't been swimming since early
    August.  Last weekend, a friend invited her over to their house for an
    end-of-the-season pool party.  When Nicole put her swim suit on, it was
    a little small.  She walked out of her bedroom and announced, "This
    thing makes me look like a hooker."
    
    Bob

    And how old is she...................?

    Soon-to-be- 3, Andrew, (my grandson) and his Mom were shopping and he 
    spotted some Ninja Turtle Lip Balm.  He asked and asked, and his Mom 
    bought it for him.
    
    At home, he had her put some on him.  He went into another room, where
    his Dad was.  Dad asked for a kiss and Andrew said, "I can't Daddy, I
    got my make-up on."
    
    Wish I had been there.
    
    Lee

    re: .186
    
    Nicole is 10.

    Ilona (25 months) has a new expression, "hon-nee".  I've determined it
    means "help me" or "please."
    
    For instance, sitting on my lap she said "Hon-nee out" when she wanted
    to get down.
    
    Where did she ever get this? :-) 
    
    L
    

    
    This morning I was trying a size 12-month dress on my 18-month old
    daughter to see if she could wear it for Thanksgiving. It was a little
    on the small side and as I stepped back to see how she looked, she 
    herself looked down at the dress and said clear as day "I look
    pretty!!" I didn't know whether to laugh cause she actually looked
    silly, or cry cause she put the sentence together so well, instead I
    told her that yes she did look pretty, but we'll buy you a new dress
    anyways.
    
    Patty

    My daughter examined the soles of her babysitter's sneakers, pointed to
    the large round red dot (Reebok) and said, "NICE!"
    
    L
    

    My son Justin, who turned 2 yesterday came up to me in the morning when
    he got up and said...
    
    Birthday Mama, get up!
    
    I had to give him the biggest hug, it was soooo cute!
    
    Von

    Sarah (7 mos next week) and I were playing on the floor this past
    weekend when her dad came downstairs to join us.  We were all goofing
    around when Michael asked, "Sarah, who's the real baby around here?" 
    Sarah looked him straight in the eye and replied "Da Da"
    
    Aaaah, she's learning so young 8^)
    
    Susan

    David (3) and I were discussing what he would really like for
    Christmas. After this long discussion, I asked him what he was going to
    get ME for Christmas.  He replied "Batteries".  When I asked him why
    batteries, he replied "So YOU can put them in my toys".  Gee, thanks
    Dave... : )

    .in line with batteries...
    
    One day coming home from preschool Avanti (3.5 yrs) noticed the traffic
    lights at the end of Digital Drive (Merrimack) blinking. 
    
    Avanti: Mommy! The lights are blinking today.
    
    Mommy:  Uh huh!
    
    Avanti: They are blinking 'cause there is no policeman here to replace
            the batteries.
    
    (All Mommy could do was GRIN!)
    
    Shaila

My son Markus who is 12 is just getting into the age of "Boums", parties held
at one of the children's homes or at school where they take turns playing the
records and being the DJ.  Markus, who is quite the natural showman, loves
to hold the post and be, as he says, the "disk joker" :-)

ccb

    Ryan is 4. Taking a walk at dusk the other day we noticed the moon and
    a very bright star - he quickly told me that it is Jesus Christ's star
    for Christmas.
    
    A few minutes later in the walk, he suddenly asked me who he will live
    with when I get "older and sicker".
    
    

    My husband gave me a ring for our anniversary recently.  Paige (almost
    4 and recently obsessed with death) told me it was beautiful, then
    asked, "Can I have it when you die?"
    
    -Tracy
    
    
    

    Every time my 2 year old sees stars in a picture book or in the sky,
    she sings, "Twinke, twinkle, little 'tar, how I la la la fa fa."
    
    If I try to sing it (to help her learn the words), she puts out her
    hand and says "'TOP!", then sings it again herself.
    
    She thinks stars are called both "twinkle twinkle" and "'tars".
    
    L

	The other day I had the hiccups.  So inthe never ending effort to
	teach her new words, I told Megan (21 months), "Mommy has the hiccups."

	Since then se has been running around saying, "Mommy, have hop ups"

	W-

    RE: 199
    
    Made me want to comment about my own two-year-old's version of
    Twinkle Twinkle.  She's always using words in songs SHE knows,
    which may not be the right ones.
    
    So, Twinkle Twinkle sung by Katina is:
    
    Twinkle twinkle little star
    How I wonder what you are
    Like a DONUT in the sky
    Up above the world so high...

    
    
    Your lucky, Ty starts the songs and then insists that I finish them, in
    his words, which half the time I can't understand.
    
    

    My two-year-old's version starts out: "Tickle, tickle, yittle tah...".

					cheryl

    	Well this isn't my child but yesterday I took Spencer to have his
    picture taken with Santa Claus. The line was not that long but it was
    moving slowly.

    	Behind us was a young mother with two boys apx. 6 and 3, both were
    obviously showing signs of being tired and hungry. When the mother
    decided that the wait wasn't worth it, the older boy got very agitated
    and she asked us in line if he could cut in front "to give Santa
    something" (not to have his picture taken). 

    	Turns out the little boy pulled some coins out of his pocket and
    gave them to Santa so that Santa would be able to buy him his Christmas
    presents. As soon as the coins were passed the boy was pacified and
    happily left with his brother and mother.

    	The littlest idealistic realist?			

    				Wendy

    Kathy stepped on one of Nick's 'Matchbox' cars with her bare feet the
    other day, and proceeded to scold him for having left his toys on the
    floor. She finally asked him: "Now what do you say to Mommy?",
    expecting him to apologize. Instead, he replied: "Next time, step
    *over* them!"
    
    I thought she would wet her pants from laughing so hard...
    
    Freddie

    
    Sophie is approachinh three and is *very* articulate and verbal.  and
    logical, too, it would ssem.  HSe's figured out contractions and *my
    favorite is "I am not" = I Amn't.
    
    Jamd

    When Ilona (age 2)  really wants something I'm using, like a mop, she
    rolls her eyes, clicks her tongue, sticks out her hand, and says, "I
    NEED that."
    
    (Wonder where she learned THAT expression. ;-)
    
    My only reply, "Well *I* need it MORE."
    
    Luckily she hasn't figured out a good rejoinder to that one.
    
    L

    
    Bhavika, my 2 yr old daughter, will hold up her fingers to form a "V"
    sign and say, "I am 2 old" ...!!! We've decided not to correct her !!
    
    Sigh ... she IS getting too old ... oh where did the baby years go?
    
    Pam

Yesterday, my wife took our two children, Kelly 4.5yrs and Christopher 2.5
yrs, to see Santa.

Since this is really the first year that Chris has an idea of the whole
festive season, he was pretty excited about it. When I got home from work
I started asking him all about the experience.

His eyes lit up, he got all excited, and proceeded to tell me all about
it including the part about asking for a (arms thrown out wide for emphasis!)
"BIG Backhoe so I can dig in the sandbox!!!".

But then he put a big pout on his face, and sadly told me; "But he didn't
give it to me." :-(

Guess we still need to work on the concept and wean him of the instant
gratification age.

						Mark

    Tobias is 6 & 1/2.  Last year he asked me a question about
    whether or not something having to do with Santa was real.
    I think he asked me if flying reindeer were real.
    
    Not wanting to lie to him, but not wanting to destroy his
    fantasies about Santa, I replied:
    
    "Tobias, flying reindeer are just as real as Santa himself."
    
    And that satisfied him then.
    
    Well, last night he asked me if Rudolf was a real reindeer.
    AHA, I have just the answer......
    
    "Tobias, Rudolf is just as real as the rest of Santa's reindeer."
    
    However, I guess he's learned a lot in the last year; maybe he's
    watched too much politics on TV.  At any rate his reply was
    
    "But daddy, you haven't answered the question."
    
    Luckily I was able to distract him so that he didn't keep answering.
    I just hope he forgets and doesn't ask me again...

	Megan, who is 22 months, has her own version of "Santa Claus
	is coming to town".  

	She loves to sing and insists the words are "Santa Claus is coming.....
	
	...two times!"

While traveling on the road the other day my son Christpher (almost
3 years old) and I had a conversation that went like this...

"Mommy?"
"Yes, sweetheart"
"I'm not a sweetheart, I'm a pumpkin"
"Sorry, what is it pumpkin"
"Actually, I'm a jack o'lantern"

Early yeaterday morning I called my husband at home before he left for work.
My daughter, Michelle, 2.5 answered the phone on the first ring (daddy, 
apparently, didn't hear the phone ring).  Here's how the conversation went:

Michelle:  Hello
Me:	   Hi Michelle, how are you?
Michelle:  Mommy - you made the phone ring!
Me:	   Yes, I did.  Can I speak with daddy?
Michelle:  No - I'm going to go watch Barney now. CLICK

Unfortunately when she hung up the phone it didn't seat properly, so it didn't
disconnect.  I could hear Michelle and daddy playing in the backround, but they
couldn't hear me yelling into the phone.  I finally had to call our daycare 
providor and relay a message for my husband.

So when are they old enough to learn some telephone etiquette?

    My son David's (3) version of 'Santa Claus Is Coming To Town":
    
    "You better watch out, you better not pout, you better not cry I'm
    telling you why, Santa Claus is coming *two times*"
    
    Sarah

    Wishful thinking! 8-)
    

    
    	Tyler's 4th birthday was Monday.  After dinner we had his birthday
    cake.  When he we done, he went into the bathroom to wash his hands and
    from out of the dark room(he likes to leave the lights off) I hear him
    say, "That was very good cake, Thank you Mommy."  Plain as day and
    perfectly clear.  I just sat at the table with my mouth open.  He
    looked at me and smiles, "I was just trying to be nice.  It was good
    cake."
    
    	These are the times I am glad I have him.
    
    Virginia

    
    
    	 This is an instance which my aunt told me about my seven year
    	old cousin.
    	 Whilst watching the T.V. an advert promoting safe sex came on,
    	"Will I have safe sex, Mummy ?" Anna asked much to the shock of
    	my aunt, until Anna continued "..well, I've had measles and
    	mumps, I just wondered if I would have safe sex too."
    	 She assumed safe sex was a disease because it's always promoted
    	along with HIV warnings on T.V. Funny but frightening what kids
    	are growing up with now isn't it.
    
    	Gillian
    	

    My daughter video-taped Christmas morning for us.  We were watching it
    and heard my daughter tell Andrew, now 3, that he hadn't looked in his
    stocking yet.
    
    He sat by the tree and began taking out the goodies.  Suddenly, there
    was a shout of glee, and he turned and said, " I so happy to do this."
    
    So far, I've played that back about 50 times.  That's what Christmas is
    all about for little ones.
    
    Lee

    And I still get a chuckle when I think back about 3 years ago when
    Dougie, the boy across the street, was playing along my fence.  Lady,
    our dog, was running along with him, but on the inside.  Dougie was 4
    or so, and had a problem with his "L's".
    
    I turned away for a moment and heard Dougie yell.  When I turned back,
    he was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.  I asked what was
    wrong.  He said, "Wady wicked my wips."  Good thing I wasn't on a
    ladder at the time.
    
    Lee

    I had to take my 26 month old son , Matthew, to the doctor Friday for
    an ear infection.  I had talked with him most of the morning about
    how the doctor was going to check his ears.  While we were waiting
    for the Dr. to come into the room, Matthew pushed the little chair
    that the DR. sits on over to me, climbed up on it and said "check 
    Mommy's ear?" - I said "sure" - then he suddenly jumped down and 
    exclaimed "oh wait! Need screwdriver!"  - I was rolling with laughter
    while he pretended to get a screwdriver from the cabinet drawer!!
 
    Lila

    I thought I was giving my 2.5 year old a compliment the other day
    when I remarked that I was so lucky to have a daughter like her.
    
    She was highly insulted and responded "I'm not a daughter!  I'm a
    little girl!"

    My 5 year old, Marc and I have always used "I give up" or "stop" to
    mean the wrestling/horse play is over for one of us. This weekend when
    I was tickling/wrestling with him he suddenly said "aunt". I asked
    him if he meant "uncle" (stop) - yes, he did.

    -.1 reminded me of this one from a few months ago.
    
    Nick and I were wrestling on the living room floor. Needing a breather,
    I said "Time-out!". He gave me this  horrified look, and said: "But
    Daddy, you said it was OK to wrestle". It took me a moment to realize
    that to him, "timeout" meant discipline instead of 'let's take a break'.
    
    

    
Last night, when Emily (2.5 yrs old) came to the end of one her picture 
books, she noticed the author/illustrator's photo on the inside cover.  
                                                             
When Emily asked who the "lady" was, I explained that the lady drew all the 
pictures in the book. Emily's response: "We have to thank her for that."

Now, if she'd only say thanks to people she meets in person.
                                                     
Gene

    One of 10 year old Nicole's duties is folding and putting away the
    laundry.  The other night, out of the blue (isn't it always this way?),
    she asked, "Dad are you going to get me some underwear for Valentine's
    Day?"  I said, "No."  She said, "Why not?".  I said, "Because I wasn't
    planning on it."  Nicole says, "But Mom gave you Valentine's Day
    underwear, and you gave Mom some."  I replied, "I don't think so."
    
    Hmmm.  I could just see trying to explain crotch-less panties :-0

    At daycare, 2-1/2 year old Gina was showing off her belly.  A Mom (Hi
    Pat!) asked her, "Where did you get your bellybutton?"  Gina told her
    that Daddy bought it for her.  When Pat asked where, Gina replied, "At
    CVS!"
    
    judy

    I hadn't had the time to get David's (age 3) hair cut in quite some time. 
    My in-laws and several other relatives were giving me such grief (none
    offered to take him to get it cut, though...) that I finally decided to
    take the plunge and cut it myself.  Did a pretty good job, too : ) That
    day we visited the in-laws, and Grampa (father-in-law) exclaimed to
    David "Hey David!  Where did you get that haircut?"  David replied :
    "On my head!".
    Last night at supper, David looked up at me and asked "Mom, do you
    think I'm odd?"  
    Now, this has to come from TV someplace.  Any ideas?  He said it with
    such a straight face.  When I told him I didn't think he was odd, he
    just said "oh".  I don't think he knows if odd is a good thing to be or
    a bad thing : )
    Sarah

    re: being "odd"
    
    Has he watched "Beauty and the Beast" lately? Nick (age 3) had us puzzled
    last month when he asked the exact same question...it wasn't until a
    week or so later, when we actually paid attention to the B&B video that
    we realized it was a quote from the movie. (Belle returns home from a
    trip into town, where everyone was singing about her, and asks her
    father: "Papa, do you think I'm odd?"
    
    

    Yes!  Thank you, that's it.  He has the B&B tape, and I knew it sounded
    familiar, but couldn't put my finger on it.  
    Sarah

    Last Friday night both kids spent the evening at their daycare for
    "Kids Night Out".  My husband and I took advantage of this time to
    shop for a TV for our bedroom. We settled on a 25" SHARP.
    
    We load the TV box in the back of the van, cover it up with a blanket
    and enjoy a dinner out before picking the kids up.  Once in the car,
    our daughter Amber (Age 7) asks what's in the box. "A dog" I tell her.
    She lifts the blanket and cleverly states "oh, a SHARPEI, I see".
    
    My husband and I nearly busted a gut. 
    
    It's so much fun when these little people with a quick wit begin 
    to read.
    
    Jodi- 

    The kids daycare started a hygiene program for kindergarteners
    last week. They were all given a chart and soap and told to put
    put an X under the correct category each time they wash their
    hands. The categories are things like "Before eating or touching
    food", "After using the bathroom", "After coughing or sneezing",
    etc.  The chart is turned in each week and the kids earn stickers
    and fun things for compliance and participation.
    
    Michael, age 5 is really into this chart thing and puts an X in
    any possible category he can. The night before he had to turn
    the chart in, I think he was worried he hadn't filled in enough
    Xs.  He looked at me and said "mom, did I sneeze last night?"
    
    Jodi-
    
    
     

    This one still has me shaking my head...
    
    Kathy and I were both ahead of schedule this morning, so we were able
    to get most of our 'bathroom stuff' done before Nick woke up. Just as
    I was finishing shaving, Nick came to the door, and had a sad look on
    his face. He looked at us and said: "Oh...you've already had your turn!
    I wanted the shivers...". Not having *any* clue what he was talking
    about, I turned to Kathy for a translation. She explained that he was
    bummed because we had both already been on the toilet, so he didn't
    have the 'fun' of getting a shiver from sitting on a cold toilet seat.
    
    And here I was thinking I was doing the noble thing by going first!
    
    Freddie

    Her first cussword.
    
    Heard my 2 year old say "No, damn it!" when I told her to put on her
    pajamas.
    
    Hmmm
    
    L
    

    My ever-so-helpful five year old said the other day, as I was getting a
    bowl of cereal prepared for myself:

    I will help you spill your milk!

    Poor kid - must have heard that so often he has forgotten that you
    *pour* milk.

    JR

Anthony got a prize from daycare for getting 3 Stars last week (1 for each day
he was good, he actually got 4, but the kids get a prize for 3).  He chose
a piece of candy and a sticker.  On the way home said he knew what to do
with the candy - he 'sucks' it.  Only he used an 'f' instead of an 's' to 
start the word.  We practiced saying 's's all the way home....

Now he 'licks' or 'eats' candy.

Dave

<with the candy - he 'sucks' it.  Only he used an 'f' instead of an 's'  

Has he ever said "dumptruck?"  Lots of little kids say "f" for "tr" and
Evan would consistently leave off the "p" sound... made it really hard
to drive down a busy road some days, especially past construction.

         Carol

    Carol,
    
    My Sarah did that, at age 2.... over on the West side of Colorado
    Springs, just West of 28th.... I don't know if the area is the same as
    it was 15+ years ago.... but it use to be all Mennonite (sp) and
    Westlian Methodists.....  *VERY* straight laced, wouldn't say poopoo if
    they stepped in it....  Great family valued people, but please hold
    your tongues when swearing comes to mind!!!  Sarah was in one end of
    our 3 lot sized yard, and I was in the other end!
    
    I slowly turned around and went back in the house!  Hopefully I wasn't
    seen!

    Our 2-year old knows that he is not supposed to get out of bed in the
    morning until he calls my husband or I to come get him.  Last Sunday 
    morning when he woke up, he called out to me in my bedroom, "Mommy!  
    Mommy!"  I called back to him, "Are you awake?"  He replied, "Yes, 
    and I'm happy, too!"

    Last week I ended up in the emergency room of the hospital, because it
    was after hours and the pedi thought it best to have his chest listened
    to as well as an oxygen level, because I had concerns about the way he
    was sounding (pulse-ox is what it's actually called). 
    (He had been hospitalized a couple weeks ago in ICU for a very bad
    asthma attack)
    
    While in the waiting room there was another boy about 2.5 also waiting
    to be seen.  (same scenario, after hours pedi recommended etc) Well, I
    guess he's just been in and around the medical profession too much
    lately.  AJ walks up to this little boy, and with a very serious look
    says "what's wrong with you?"  The mother replies for the boy that he
    may have a hernia.  Another serious look and AJ lookd him right in the
    face and says "I'm a doctor, can you tell me where it hurts?"
    
    Gawd, I guess I may be mothering a future doctor....or maybe IMPOSTER!!
    
    Lyn

    My 2 year old pointed at the kitchen counter and asked for "diamonds".
    
    Huhh?
    
    Turned out she wanted
    
    VITAMINS!
    
    I guess she's getting well trained at an early age. ;-)
    
    Laura
    

	On our way home last night, my almost 3yr old son Ian, saw a man running
along the sde of the road and said:

	"Look mom, that guy forgot his car!!"  :-)

    David (3) and I were watching "Start Trek: The Next Generation" last
    night on TV.  He was naming the crew members, and had an interesting
    version of the captain, Jean-Luc Picard.  
    
    He called him "Captain Pick-a-card".
    
    Captain of the federation star ship "Las Vegas", I guess : )
    
    Sarah

   This morning Kristine, our 2 1/2 year old daughter, and I were making
   Valentine's cookies.  When it was time to decorate them my husband
   joined us to help since it takes so much time.  Kristine started
   doing something else, then a few minutes later she asked loudly
   "What are you guys doing?

   We burst out laughing so Kristine asked louder "What are you guys
   laughing for?"

   I guess kids start labeling parents as "guys" earlier than we thought.

        --Cida
      

    Ryan is now 4 1/2. The other day he told me that the dinosaurs used to
    be alive.... "back when you and Daddy got married, Mom".
    
    

    Today my 5 1/2 year old niece Mikayla said "I know what the next 
    holiday is - it's "Secret Pete's Day"!  It's so funny how they
    take unknown things and turn them into something that's familiar
    to them!!  I guess she didn't know what a "Saint Patrick" was!
    Lila
    

    There is a commercial on TV for a soap that they claim is like three
    soaps in one--a deoderant soap, a moisturizing soap, etc.  They show
    three bars of very different looking soap--one looks like a bar of 
    Dial soap, one looks like Dove, etc.  Then they show a boy, about 8-9
    years old, holding all three soaps at one time and kind of squishing
    them together with his hands.  Through photography, it then appears 
    that the three bars turned into one bar of the soap, which the boy
    triumphantly holds out to the camera with a big smile.
    
    My 2 year old was in the tub the other night and he picked up the bar
    of soap and began trying to squish it with both hands.  I had no idea
    what he was doing, until he turned to me and held out the soap
    with a big smile.   
    
    I guess I let him watch too much network TV.
    
    Jane                       

    
    
    babies don't do as much as big kids, but they're still funny!
    
    The twins (6 months) were sitting in their pram yeaterday while Alice
    and I sat on the couch. They have handfuls of little toys, and they
    just sat there tossing them over their shoulders, without a second
    look! Toss, toss, toss, until nothing was left in the pram.
    
    8-) Simon

    You know little kids are funny... but when they are older teenagers
    they can be an absolute RIOT!!!!  

    Take last night for instance!  We were watching reruns of "The Wonder
    Years", on FOX... the one where Wayne enlists in the army, and fails
    the physical because he has psoriasis!  The conversation went like this... 
    Sarah is 17, Brent is 19... I am... older!!!!

    Brent: What exactly is psoriasis?

    Sarah: Oh, I know that one... it's curvature of the spine!

    a few chuckles....

    Me: No... that's scoliosis!!!!

    Sarah:  That's right... 

    Me: It's a skin disorder, that causes flaking... kind of like dandruff,
    but not just on your head!

    Sarah: Oh... something like Emphysema???????


    Well..... she was sort of right... Eczema does start with the letter E
    and end in ema.... we all laughed till tears flowed! 
    

I just learned something from Anthony (4 yrs old) last
night - my beeper doesn't 'go off', it 'goes on'!!

I couldn't explain to myself why it 'goes off' so
I agreed with him!

Dave

    I just got off the phone with my 3.5 year old son--I'm still
    rolling!:-)  Seems he went to Builder's Square with his pappa.  I asked
    him what they bought and he said, "memerizer".  Unintelligible-so I
    asked, "You mean fertilizer?"  He said, "yeah, that.  You know-the
    thing that waters the grass by itself."  "Oh," I said, "You mean
    sprinklers?"  "yeah, Mom, that's how you say sprinkler in Spanish,
    fertilizer."
    
    Pam

    Andrew, 3-1/2, uses P's for F's.  He told me that his friend Emily has
    his favorite video, and asked me to buy it for him.  I told him if he
    would borrow it from Emily, I'd make a copy of it.
    
    He said, "I don't like copy.  I too small to drink it."  Read "coffee"
    for "copy".
    
    Lee

Picture this:

Anthony (4 yrs old)
in Walmart
with a plunger.....

Took a good 10 minutes to walk down 2 isles to the check out
counter...:-)

Dave

    The other day before going out to dinner I put on some eyeshadow 
    (rare for me), then went to change my 2.5 year old.  He scrutinized
    my face and then said, "Oh No!  Mommy, you have dirty eyes!"
    
    

    Due to both myself and my husband coming down with the flu this past
    weekend, Sarah (10 months) was sent to stay with her grandparents in
    order that she remain out of the germ zone and to give mom and dad
    their much needed sleep.
    
    According to my mom, Sarah was sitting on the couch next to my brother
    who was eating his lunch.  Sarah decided that she had to have some of
    his french fries and repeatedly tried to grab a few from his plate. He
    kept pushing her had away but she kept reaching.  He put her zweiback
    cookie in with the fries and let her grab that.  She looked at it for a
    minute, tossed it away and tried for the fries again.  Again she was
    rebuffed.  Not to be denied, she climbed up on my brother and threw her
    arms around his neck and began nuzzling. While my brother was enjoying
    this bit of affection, she reached down with one hand and, of course,
    grabbed his french fries!

    
    The last reply reminded me of a cute scenario I witnessed my son (16mos) 
    do one morning last week after arriving at daycare.  The daycare providers
    daughter (2yrs) had a waffle she was eating while holding her baby doll.
    Michael went up to her and got her doll away from her and then proceeded 
    to try and get a bite of her waffle (while still in HER hand) at the same 
    time. When she raised the hand with the waffle up out of his reach,
    (also she was trying to watch something on tv too), he handed her her
    doll back. While she was trying to take the doll back, he held it
    "just" out of reach enough so that she had to really reach hard for
    it, and while reaching, she wouldn't pay attention to the other hand
    with the waffle in it, and he would take a big bite out of it!  He did it 
    *three* times until she figured it out!
    
    Its amazing how smart they are even at THEIR age, huh?!
    
    Chris
    

    Too bad there wasn't a video camera around a the time!!  Sound like a
    Bob Saget $1500 winner to me!
    
    Kids, ya got to love 'em!
    
    Lyn 

    Posted with permission from Dick Stuart, who posted this in the
    Fire_Rescue_EMS notes.
    
    He and his partner Greg Lengyel were called to a home where a 7 year
    old girl had fallen down the stairs, and been injured.  As some of you may
    know some real "dumb" questions need to be asked, just to see if you know 
    who you are, where you are etc. to see how hurt you could be.
    
    The conversation went something like this:
    
    
    Hi my name is Dick what yours?
    
    	My name is Melissa
    
    Melissa, how old are you?
    
    	I'm seven
    
    Melissa can you tell me what happened?
    
    	I fell down the stairs
    
    OK, Melissa can you tell me what day this is?
    
    	It's a school day!!!
    
    (OK so he just HAD to ask!!)
    
    
    (thanks Dick!....Lyn)

    For Christmas, Andrew got one of those horses which is a stick with a
    stuffed horse's head on it.  If you squeeze one ear, it whinnies. 
    Squeeze the other, it makes a clopping sound.
    
    I asked what it's name was.  Andrew said, "John."
    
    Ha ha, John the Horse.  And that's what it's called now by everyone.
    
    He wanted to name his new puppy "Pumpkin Head", but settled for Jesse.
    
    Lee

    RE:  -1
    
    My daughter named her troll doll Fa - yes, just Fa.
    
    Will she call her next dolls So, La, Ti, and Do?
    
    Laura
    

    Conversation between Daddy and Avanti (4 yrs old in June):
    
    Avanti: Daddy I want a "lullaby". 
    
    Daddy: You want a Lullaby???
    
    Avanti: Yes. Can you give me a "lullaby" please!
    
    Daddy: You want a "lullaby"??
    
    
    
    
    Me: Oh! Daddy Avanti wants a "granola bar".
    
    I am so used to her saying granola bar that sounds like lullaby that I
    knew but this was Daddy's first experience in her asking for it. My
    cousin and his wife who were present there had a good laugh.
    
    Shaila

   re: .261... Lullaby...
   
   Hmmm... never heard of that one ... if you hum a few "bars", maybe I
   can improvise....
   
   Sorry.... couldn't resist!  :-)  :-)

   - Tom

    re: naming stuffed animals
    
    When Nick was a baby, he received two Baby Puffalumps. When he was old
    enough to name them, he called one of them 'Puff', and called the other
    'More Puff'...

    Along the same lines...
    
    Caileigh's favorite teddy bear is named Blue-and-White Teddy Bear. 
    (Guess what color it is?)  Her first doll was a bald Cabbage Patch
    doll, which she named Baby No-Hair.  Her first doll with hair was 
    named...you guessed it, Baby Hair.
    
    Paige's dolls, on the other hand, are named Paige...and Paige...and
    Paige...
    
    My friend has predicted that I will someday have grandchildren named
    First-Born, Second-Born, and Paige (...and Paige and...)
    
    -Tracy
    
    

    My daughter had a stuffed Donkey named Hodie!
    
    HONEST!!!!

	not to rathole, but my sister,too, had a donkey named

	Donkey Hodie  

	when she was little...

	Karen

>	not to rathole, but my sister,too, had a donkey named
>
>	Donkey Hodie  

    I didn't read that book until I was in High School!

    My wife was telling Alex (three and a half) about when he was
    born.  Since she had a Caesarian, she slept downstairs on the
    couch for a while:
    
    Mommy: ....I slept on this couch next to you for six weeks.
    
    Alex:  And then you waked up!
    
    		-John Bishop

    Donkey Hodie is a Mr. Rogers character - famous for saying not only
    "Hee Haw", but also "Haw Hee".
    
    L.

    Actually Sarah's Donkey Hodie was from The Man of LeMancha .... 
    both of my kids grew up on classical and show tunes... consequently.... 
    I have a Rapper and a head banger!!!!  Go figure!
    

	Last night my mother came over to dinner.  As we were eating,
	we were talking about Emily's latest "tricks", one of which
	is clapping on command.

	Well, I no sooner got the word "clap" out in conversation, than
	Emily started clapping her hands in her high chair.  I wasn't
	looking at her, or even talking to her.  

	Time to start spelling words, I guess :-)

    
    	We've had to spell the words BATH and CELLAR for the last few
    	months, because my son LOVES to go down to the cellar and bathtime, 
    	and if we mention either of them at the wrong time, he goes running
    	to the bathroom/cellar pounding on the door to go in!
    
    	They sure are great aren't they!
    
    	Chris
    

    Boy, all of your comments really give me quite a few laughs!!!
    
    At any rate, we have a 15 month old boy who has been experimenting with
    his new verbal capabilities lately.  One thing that my husband taught
    him was to say "yee haw" while giving yourself a "knee slap" (can you
    tell we are from the South?).  Well, my son just can't seem to get it
    right and whenever he says it he stomps his foot and says yee haw as if
    he is a donkey (yeeeeeee hawwww - donkey nasal twang and all)!!!
    
    It's amazing how the littlest of things amuse us!!
    
    Lisa
    
      

Yesterday my son Kevin arrived at the sitter's house after kindergarten
with his latest project. They had made terrariums out of shoe boxes and
turtles out of the egg container pieces.

He asked the sitter - "So did you see my diaphragm we made at 
			school today?

Gotta love those kids !!!

When I told my husband the story his response was "He didn't learn
			that word from us" , as he looked at my 
			VERY pregnant belly".

Have a Good Day!

- Pat K.

    My daughter has to do a shoebox book report every other week.
    Her school calls them Diaramas. That is probably where Kevin
    got the word "diaphragm". Now I'm always forgetting what these
    things are called and usually say "Amber, would you please 
    take your...ummm...???...'diarrhea' off the kitchen table and
    put it in your room?"
    
    Jodi-

re: .275

Actually, if my daughter were in grade school and my wife asked her to take 
her diaphragm off the table and take it to her room, I would REALLY split a 
gut.

Now that she's twelve, I would probably break out in a cold sweat.

Clay

    My precocious just-5-year-old daughter reads fluently and has a very
    advanced vocabulary.  So you can imagine our surprise when she recently
    started saying "I be ..." instead of "I am..." and "She bees... "
    instead of "She is..."
    
    L.
    

    Last night, my 2 year old tripped while running through the living 
    room.  Nothing serious.  But I asked him, "Are you all right?"  And
    he replied, "No.  My legs are broken!"
    
    Jane

Wouldn't you know it, the day after my wife has surgery and is still out of it
due to pain medication, 10 year old Nicole has her first period.  It started
at school but she didn't say anything until she got to our friend's house where
she was staying for a few days.  Our friend has 3 kids, a boy 4, a girl 6, and
another girl 8.  Nicole and our friend and her daughters all had a talk and I
guess during this talk, our friend must have said something along the line of
Nicole now being a woman, because a little later, the 6 year old said, "Mom.
Nicole doesn't LOOK any different."

Bob

    My son David (3) was sitting on his bed reading a book after bath time.
    He refuses to put on pajamas until he reads a book, so he was sitting
    in his underwear.  Next thing I know, he's screaming for me to "Come
    quick!"
    
    David : "Mommy! My leg is going to fall off! Look, there's a crack!"
    
    The "crack" was a wrinkle in the skin on his knee. Apparently he had
    never noticed that the skin on his knees is a little looser when his
    legs are straight. Took some fancy talking to convince him that it
    wasn't a structural defect : )
    Sarah

    My 2.5 year old daughter just noticed the plastic fastener that
    attaches her favorite doll's head and torso; it has a small square bump
    in the back.
    
    When she asked what it was, I told her.  She demanded that I remove the
    bump.  I said the doll's head would fall off without it.  
    
    She looked really worried.  I rushed to reassure her that she is a
    girl, not a doll, and that her head is all of a piece with the rest of
    her body and that no pieces can fall off.
    
    I'm glad I rememberd Judy's recounting of the psychologist's reaction
    to Gina's fear of bandaids and holes in clothing.  So it's true kids
    have this fear!
    
    Laura
    

    My daughter is going through a stage where she is obsessed about her
    teeth and she is pulling and poking at one saying that its loose.  We
    try to tell her not to rush it that she will lose them when they are
    ready, but of course there is no explaining that to her.  The other
    night her father and her were having a conversation about losing teeth.
    Her father says to her that when she loses the tooth she will have to
    put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy.  She says "yeah so he can
    bring me a $100."  Of course we told her right away that the tooth
    fairy had too many children to visit to be able to give her a $100.
    
    

	My son (6 yr) was giving my 2 month old her bottle the other
	morning.  As I was walking into the living room to check on
	them I heard:
		"Finish your bottle,Julie, before the big reptile 
		comes and takes it"

	We never heard of the "Big Reptile" before, but he must be
	the 90's version of the boogyman...

	/Robin

    Andrew, now 3 1/2, was visiting for the weekend.  He told me "You're
    the best Pepere in the whole world!"  I replied, "I'm a lucky guy."
    
    He said, "Yeah, it's your lucky day, Pepere."
    
    Later, he was eating and sort of just staring out the window, when he
    said, "My Mommie and Daddie had a fight."  Caught off guard, I said
    that was too bad and asked if everything was okay now.  He said, "Yeah,
    I yelled at them."  I replied, "You did?"  He then said, "Yup, they
    were making me crazy."
    
    Lee

    Loni, 2 1/2, tells me, "My nose is running around," when she has a cold.
    
    When her stomach is grumbling she says, "My stomach is running around." 
    It does feel that way, doesn't it?
    
    Laura

    In a mighty push for independence, this morning Loni dressed herself. 
    Wish I had a camera.  She wore:
    
    2 pairs of rubber pants (no diaper).  She's a hot item, fer sure. 
    A shirt
    Denim toddler overalls with the crotch left unsnapped (looked like a
     clumsy maxi skirt).  She refused to let me snap it up.
    Shoes with no socks
    Hair uncombed
    
    A true fashion statement.  :-)  :-) 
    
    Laura

<     <<< Note 14.287 by TNPUBS::STEINHART "Back in the high life again" >>>

At least when this happens other parents will take one look at your child
and know that this was a "dressed myself" day (and not blame you!).  :-)

       Carol

   We were in the kitchen the other night with the TV on.  A particular
   commercial came on ... something about remodeling and such, and the
   last message they left you with was something about having a new
   kitchen.
   
   My 4yr old heard this commercial, and when it was over she turned to
   look at me and said..



   Dad... a new kitchen would be hard to carry...
   
   Ugh .. this is the sort of thing I would say ..  :-)

   - Tom

    Yesterday evening when we got home my husband was looking at the stream
    of water generated by the melting snow in our driveway. Avanti looks at
    the water and says:
    
    "Mommy, why don't we get some paper towels and clean this up?"
    
    Wish it was that easy :-)
    
    Shaila

    Several weeks ago I got a great deal on a designer pantsuit and did a
    lot of kidding around about it: since it's double-breasted, charcoal
    with cream pinstripes, I called it my gangster suit, thought I should
    get a black shirt and white tie to go with it, said it was my BROKENleg
    Cassini suit, etc.
    
    Last week the weather and a customer visit provided a perfect
    opportunity to wear it.  As I paraded in front of Alex, I asked her how
    I looked in it.  She said,
                              "Is that your fugitive suit?"
    
    Well, yeah, I guess the fashion police ARE after me  :-)
    
    Leslie

    Last nite, Avanti (almost 4 years old) had trouble sharing her toys
    with Neel (almost 1 year old). So Daddy proceeded to lecture her on the
    virtues of sharing.
    
    Daddy : "Avanti, you want us to share our room with you when you come
    	     and sleep with us every night, but you don;t want to share
    	     your toys with your brother. That's not fair."
    
    Avanti : "OK, I will share my toys with Neel. Then can I sleep with you
    	     and Mommy every nite?"
    
    All I could do was GRIN!!! 
    
    Shaila

    this isn't funny...how bout the grossest kid!!!!
    
    i play chase with lindsay last nite to change her for bed...finally
    get her in the living room....put her on the couch just got her 
    diaper off...and twist...she's off again....crawls/runs down the 
    couch....stops...looks at me i say what's the matter don't you want 
    a new bum?....just as i hear ........sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
    
    ALL OVER MY COUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When my daughter Lisa was 2 and my 3-months pregnant wife was spending
most of the day in bed due to constantly being dehydrated, Lisa took
advantage of the lack of supervision.....

Seizing the opportunity, she led our 80lb golden retriever into the
bathroom where we kept all of the baby supplies.  She then proceeded to
lock the door and go to work....

I came home from work and immediately noticed her absence - uh-oh.  After
some searching, I noticed the light coming from underneath the bathroom
door.  The door was locked and Lisa wasn't talking, but I could hear her
fussing about.  I asked her to open the door but she wasn't cooperating.

That's when I noticed the "cloud" coming from under the door - panic
mode sets in!!  I found a key, opened the door, and what I saw made me
furious and hysterical at the same time.  There was Lisa, white from head
to toe from powder.  The bathroom was completely covered as well.  And
then there was poor Sandy.  Lisa had poured baby shampoo on her, added
powder, and rubbed it in - Blech!!!  What a sight!!!

A couple of weeks later, she struck again.  This time she captured our
black cat in the bathroom.  When I rescued the cat, she had a nice white
stripe down her back -- Pepe le' Peau!!

Dave

    Dave, I think your story made my day! hilarious!
    
    Monica

Maybe someday I'll tell you what she did in the bathroom
with Vaseline!!

:-)

Dave

                       <<< Note 14.294 by UNXA::PARKER >>>

<When my daughter Lisa was 2 and my 3-months pregnant wife was spending
<most of the day in bed due to constantly being dehydrated, Lisa took
<advantage of the lack of supervision.....

It must go with the name - our 2 year old Lisa took advantage of the
lack of supervision while mom was in labor and dad was cleaning up
the spilled amniotic fluid to flush the baby supplies down the toilet.

Sign me still laughing with my 2 year old............

Rochelle

    (I hope DSS is not reviewing these notes...)
    
    I am working on finishing the basement in our house and in after one
    particularly long day my kids asked me what I was doing.  I replied
    "I'm building cages for you!"
    
    The following week my son (age 4) asked mom,  "What is Daddy doing donw
    there?"  My wife answered with a question: "What do you think he is
    doing?"  To which he replied: "Moving the cages?"
    
    Interesting thought, no?
    
    

    Our 2 year old has recently been watching Pinochio (which he pronounes:
    "nok-i-nok".)  Anyway, he was particularly interested in the way
    Pinochio calls Gepetto "Father".  He's decided he needs to have his
    own father.  So this morning he kept pestering my husband with, 
    "Daddy, where's my father?  Where's my father, daddy?"  No amount
    of explaining would appease him.  
    
    Jane
    

Our almost 3 year old understands that Daddy, Father, Papa, Vatti... are the
same thing.  However, she changes which one she uses for me based on which
video she has been watching lately  8^{).

Dick

    Yesterday, Ilona and I were watching a classical music performance on
    TV.  I pointed out the woman playing the oboe.  Ilona grabbed her elbow
    and said "elbow".  Yes, yes, it is very close.  :-)
    
    We're enmeshed in the potty training melodrama.  She does better at
    home if one of her dolls goes "pee pee" first.  Yesterday, her doll
    went, then Ilona went.  I thought we were all set.  Ilona pointed to
    her raincoat and said "pees".  It was dry and I couldn't figure out the
    problem.  Ilona was finally satisfied when her raincoat went "pee pee"
    too.  Sometimes I feel like Alice in Wonderland.
    
    Laura

    Since my son turned two, I've been ushering him out of my bedroom when
    I get changed or out of the bathroom when I'm showering.  I try to tell
    him gently that I need my privacy, then I close the door.  He usually
    waits by the door calling my name.  Once I'm pretty much dressed, I
    open the door to let him in, then continue putting on my shoes and
    socks, or whatever.  
    
    The other day I was going into the bathroom and my son tried to follow
    me in.  I said "No, I need my privacy."  This time he finally seemed to
    understand and said, "OK!", and ran away.  I gratefully closed the
    door, but a minute later I heard him opening my dresser drawer. 
    Another minute later and he was knocking at the bathroom door.  I
    opened the door and he held up a pair of my socks, saying "Here's 
    your privacy!"
    
    Jane

    David (age 3) is battling the worst case of chicken pox I've ever seen.
    After 5 full days of horrible itching, little sleep, a fever, and
    constant rain, we took advantage of the nice weather yesterday to go
    out into the yard to play for a bit.  The little boy next door
    (Michael) wanted to come over to play, but I told David he couldn't
    because 
     
    Me : "You'll give Michael the chicken pox"  
    
    To which David replied:
    
    "But I want to give Michael the chicken pox.  I don't want them anymore."
    
    

    
    Sophie, 3 1/3 was talking about the weather the other day.           
    
    "I'm going to tell god to stop the thunder, because *I don't like it!!8
    
    Parent>  Oh? what do you think god will do then?
    
    "He'll stop the thunder and then go back in my tummy!"
    
    
    
    
    
    Turns out my husband and Sophie were talking about God, and he had said
    God was something you feel inside....  like in thetummy, I guess  :-)

    My son Matthew is 2 1/2.  He's such a mellow and well behaved little
    boy that only recently have we started using timeouts, and only
    rarely.  Anyway, more often than not he will put HIMSELF into a
    timeout!  What happens is he'll start doing a behavior that usually
    warrants a timeout from Mom or Dad (like screaming when we have to tell
    him no) - then, he'll realize he's behaving in an unacceptable manner
    and he'll say (usually while crying) "I need a timeout" - then he'll
    crawl up on the couch with his blankie and wait till we say he can
    get down!   It is so cute - I always have to hide a smile.  
    
    Lila
    

    Lila, I am sure you are praying that he continues this way - its
    like the other day Charlotte started something amusing: I had taken
    all of the clothes out of the hamper, sorted them and took all but one
    pile down to be washed. Charlotte came to the hamper and immediately
    started to put one piece at a time back into the hamper, until ALL
    the clothes were off the floor.
    I asked Alan what we could do to reinforce this behaviour! He said
    we should enjoy it now - its bound not to last!
    
    Monica

    Daniel and his buddy Hal (both 5) got up to some devilment over
    the weekend and used liberal helpings of Hal's mother's nailpolish, 
    deodorant and perfume. When I asked them why, they said "We wanted 
    to disguise ourselves".
    
    You could smell them fifty feet away - but their nails never looked 
    better.
    
    Lucy

    Chris, 2 1/2 years, sometimes eats Count Chocula for breakfast. The
    other day, I was eating it, and he was eating his toast. He looks
    at me and says: "Don't eat only the marshmallows, eat the cereal
    too!". I couldn't stop laughing, because everytime he eats it, I
    remind him to do that!! 

    
    	Lila,
    
    	Emily at 10 months is too young for time-outs, but she is
    	starting this self-discipline.  As she wanders towards forbidden
    	areas (VCR, Stereo, etc), she'll often stop, turn to look at me,
    	and say "Don't!", complete with pointed finger (which I thing I
    	did only one time!!)... I too find it hard not to laugh.
    
    	Karen
    
    	PS - Monica, I'll have to have Charlotte speak to Emily, who
    	much prefers to empty the laundry basket and un-fold the folded
    	clothes.
    
    	

We had Brad and Jessica (they'll be 2 next Friday) out on the swingset
the other night, and they were having a wonderful time sliding down the
slide.  As Brad went to get in position in front of the slide, he
noticed one of the bolts that my husband used to construct the playground.
He pointed to it and proudly announced "Button!"  That wasn't bad enough.
He then proceeded to try to 'unbutton' this bolt before we finally 
convinced him it wouldn't unbutton an he slid down the slide.

My husband has now been saying to him "Can you say 'carriage bolt'?"

;-)

We've often discussed with our 4 year old daughter to allways tell if anyone
touches her or makes her feel uncomfortable.  

This past winter while she was out playing in the snow with a friend her boot 
got stuck in a snow bank.  Her friends dad got it out for her and put it back
on.  

The version of the story I got was -- "Mom, Jimmy's dad touched me and he 
made me feel uncomfortable ----  he put my boot on wrong!

Kirsten

    An addition to the "asking for a timeout" - this past Tuesday, Matthew
    once again needed a timeout.  This time I said "do you need a timeout?",
    he said "yes" - I put him on the couch and he said "Thank you"!!!!!
    You're right Monica - I'm praying this will last (but of course have
    my doubts!!!!)    Lila
                                                                           

    A couple of my kids and I were taking a car trip this
    weekend...making MANY bathroom stops.  In one bathroom,
    my son looked around and noticed "Hey, there's no U Haul in here!".

    He meant urinal!  I think the word confusion that kids make
    are really hysterical!
    bob

    I had a birthday party for my 6 year old last weekend.  I made little
    animal shaped cakes for them to decorate and eat.  One little boy
    finished decorating his cake and asked me "So, where's the birthday
    cake?"  I said, "You just decorated it - now you can eat it."  He
    paused and looked at the cake.  Then looking at me, he said "No, you
    don't understand.  YOU decorate the cake, WE eat the cake, OK?"
    
    -sandy
    

    Yesterday was a very tuff day for Evan (almost 3).  First he fell and
    scrapped his knee.  Then he was in the backyard and cut his finger. 
    After he was all cleaned up and band-aides on.  He asked for an ice
    bag.  So I filled a zip lock bag with ice cubes.  About fifeteen 
    minutes later I went to check on him.  He had the bag in his mouth, 
    sucking on the ice cubes.
    
    I said, "Evan those are for your boo boos".  He said, "I know Mom, 
    but it feels better in my mouth."
    
    Oh well,  at least he stopped crying. 
    
    Lillian

I took a few minutes to nurse my 7-month-old, Katy, this morning 
before leaving daycare.

Taylor, the 3-year-old girl at daycare, asked what I was doing.

me - Feeding Baby Katy.
T  - Where's the bottle?
me - I'm nursing her.  Want to see?
T  - THAT's the bottle?? (pointing to my breast)
me - That's my breast.  It's where the milk comes from.
T  - Milk comes out of there??
me - Yes, that's how Katy eats.
T  - Can I take it and feed her?
me - No, it's attached.
T  - Does the other side work too?
     
Obviously, the mechanics of it all were pretty intriguing!
The things we take for granted...

    My daughter Leslie runs a daycare center and her son Andrew attends.
    Yesterday, the whole group went to the zoo.  
    
    Pony rides were available.  In line for a ride, Andrew looked around
    and noticed that two of the ponies were brown and the other was black
    and white.  He excitedly told his Mommy, "Look, Mommy, a Dalmatian
    Pony!"
    
    When his turn came, he told the attendant that he wanted to ride the
    Dalmatian, not the brown ones.  Which he did.  And all the other kids
    then decided they only wanted the Dalmatian one, too.  (1001 Dalmatians
    is Andrew's favorite movie.)
    
    Lee

My four year old daughter attends a preschool religion class once a month.
While getting ready to go she said...

"Mom - religion class is boring, how come all they ever talk about is god."

I decided to dress rather casual this morning, more so than usual
as most of my group is out for the day and I just wanted to be
comfortable.  Well I guess this bothered my three year old a little
because as I was walking out the door this morning he comes 
downstairs dragging one of my nicer sweaters and says,

"This is for you to take to work, Mommy.  It's in case you get
all sweaty and need to change"

(Guess Mommy works too hard sometimes??)

My four year old daughter, Breanne called a friend of mine yesterday to
thank her for a pair of earrings she gave her.  I told her the number, she
dialed it herself.  She told me that Cindy wasn't home, the machine 
answered.  I told her to leave a message.......  So she said...
"This is Breanne, we can't come to the phone right now so leave a message."

I'm sure my friend got a good laugh when she got home and played her messages.

Kirsten

    Just this morning, my son Christopher (8) swung his legs out of bed
    and started to cry.  I asked him what was wrong and he said that
    yesterday in gym class they'd been running "hurdles" and he'd done
    the splits accidentally.  "Sounds like you must have pulled your
    GROIN muscle," I explained.  He hobbled around whining a bit and 
    then sat down to eat his breakfast.  About an hour later as we were
    getting ready to leave the house, Chris leans down to tie his shoes
    and yells, "Mom, quick, come see... you were right!"  And when I asked
    him what he meant by that he said, "Already one of my legs is shorter
    than the other, see?  I really did pull my _GROWING_ muscle!"   :)
    
    Leslie

    Avanti (4) 'did' her hair this morning and goes up to Daddy and asks
    (while running her fingers thru her hair) : Daddy, don't I like pretty?
    
    Then she came and asked me the same thing.
    
    Sigh! she is growing up!
    
    Shaila

    Anthony (4 yrs) has two new sayings:
    
    "I can handle it"
    "What is that in the world?" - we corrected him - "What in the world is
    that?"
    
    We were also looking at a penny the other day.  I told him that the
    picture is of Abraham Lincoln, but that he was dead.  His first
    question was "Did someone shoot him?"  I told him that someone did. 
    So, he then stated that Mr Lincoln is up with God, but the bad guy is
    in prison and they threw his gun in the trash.  But then we came across
    a picture on a Lincoln Continental in a magazine and I had to explain
    that it was not 'his' car.....
    
    Dave

    Courtney (10 years old) *loves* babies.  But, I've
    been divorced since she was a baby, and although she has asked
    for a baby brother/sister in the past, there hasn't been much chance.
    
    My boyfriend (or whatever you want to call him..."SO" feel somewhat
    pretentious to me) and I are very serious, which she knows.
    
    The other day, she and I were at the pediatrician's office for
    her yearly visit and there was a newborn in the waiting room.
    After Courtney oohed and aahhed over the baby, she matter-of-factly
    told me that it was time Jay and I got married and had a baby.
    .
    .
    .
    And we better get working on it right now because she didn't want
    to wait forever.
    .
    .
    .
    But, we could only "work on it" when she wasn't home.
    
    ah, kids.  :')  
    
    Noranne

	Our son, Archit (2) is in India right now, visiting the family.
	My dad, who uses Homeopathic medicine would give Arnica
	an anti-inflammatory to Archit, whenever he would fall down/bang 
	himself, etc. Whether Arnica works or not, I don't know, but at least 
	it always works in making Archit forget the pain. 

	Archit likes Arnica so much that he started falling down on 
	purpose. Then he would go to Dadaji (=granpa), and ask for 2 Arnica,
	one in the left hand, one in the right hand. 

	Our apt. complex in Bombay is also undergoing renovations, and there
	are scores of construction workers working around the building
	walking on their wooden scaffold. Archit, on seeing them the first 
	time, tells me, "Daddy, tell those guys that they will fall down. 
	They will have to eat Arnica then!". 

    Andrew brought his new game on his visit this weekend.  It's a set of
    plastic horse shoes.  
    
    While we were setting it up, I remarked that it was a nice set of horse
    shoes.  He replied, "They're horsie shoes, not horse shoes."  :*)
    
    Lee

Amber's birthday was on May 1st, and for months I had been telling her that 
all her bottles were going to be thrown away on her birthday because she's 
too old for bottles.  I made a big deal of her being grown up now.

I told the rest of the family NOT to give her any, and if they couldn't 
stand the crying to leave the house -- I WASN'T BACKING DOWN!

Well she cried alot on Sunday, a little less on Monday, whined on Tuesday 
and until last night hasn't even asked for one.

Last night she was on the couch with me and very tired and she said,
Could I please have a baba - I said no, and she said "Can I have one if I 
cry".  I said no, then she said "If I cry alot can I have one" and I said 
no.  She then sighed and closed her eyes.

I couldn't believe my ears.  She certainly has learned that crying will get 
her what she wants in our house.  She is the only baby in a house of four 
adults and one 15 year old.

Phyllis

 

    My husband has a variety of names for Gina, "my little munchkin,
    pumpkin, cutie," and so on. 
    
    On Sunday we were at an open house that had Dunkin Munchkins out.  Gina
    had  one, and then went off to play.  A little while later Gina came to
    me and said, "I'd like another cutie, please."
    
    With that question, she did get another one!
    
    judy

    We were out driving, and my wife was nagging me about something, so I
    said "Geez, give it a break...", to which this voice from the back seat
    (andrew, almost 5) says, "No Daddy, you have to say "Jesus Christ""...
    
    q
    

    My son Justin(4 yrs) goes to St. Francis Day Care Center in
    Manchester.  Riding in the car with his dad one day, he said "Daddy, 
    I know what St. Francis' middle name is...".  Daddy said "Really, what
    is it?"  Justin replied "Day Care"...
    
    				Donna

    
    the wife just called. She committed the cardinal sin and fell asleep
    when the kids were a'wandering. Combine this with the other cardinal
    sin of leaving the toilet seat up, and disaster is in the making.
    
    yep. She wakes up to screaming and finds four little arms stuck under
    the toilet seat. The twins are standing there wiggling, but can't get their
    armsies out from under the seat!
    
    8-))) Simon

    The other day I was doing laundry; I went and got the clothes out of
    the dryer and then dumped the basket onto the floor in the family room
    so I could fold everything.  Sarah (age 1) came running over yelling;
    "NO, NO, NO" and proceeded to put everything back into the basket.
    
    The look on her face said; "Geez, mom, you're making such a mess, but
    I'll clean it up."
    
    Susan

    Susan's entry reminded me of the time Charlotte was helping me do 
    laundry. She must have been about 18 months old. I dumped all the
    clean clothes onto the sofa to fold them, left the room, and came 
    back to find that she had methodically taken them all "back" to the
    dirty clothes hamper.  
    
    She had that serious, I'm-busy look to her. I waited until she was 
    asleep to undo her work.
    
    Lucy

    We were watching another Parenting members girls and they were singing
    "Oh Suzanna" for us, with a slight change...
    
    "...I come from Alabanjo with a banjo on my knee"
    
    Bob

    MAny is the time that we have told andrew that he must not swallow his
    gum, (I don't know why - I think it comes from an old wives tale, that
    it'll get caught in your appendix).
    
    He was in tears today, because he thought he had swallowed his gum, and
    would have to go to the hospital and have it cut  out of him. Turned
    out, he had put it on his placemat at lunchtime...
    
    q
    

    On a tangent ... if you want to see WHY not to swallow your gum, take a
    piece of chewed gum, and some ether (which closely resembles your
    digestive acids), and mix the two.  It turns to a *very* sticky
    substance that just continues to spread.  Yech!  They say it takes 7
    years to completely flush out a piece of gum.  My science teacher
    showed us this in 8th grade, and I don't think I've swallowed a piece
    since (-:
    
    Patty

    I hope I am not rat-holing here - 
    Mom likes to tell me that I was well versed on being polite and
    finishing up my plate when we were visiting friends and relatives,
    and so she had to laugh when I mentioned to her one day how
    someone had offered me a piece of gum, and like the good girl 
    I was I ate it all, and did not forget to swallow!
    
    (Ugh, you mean I had that stuff in my belly that long! yuck!)
    
    Monica

    >Yech!  They say it takes 7
    >years to completely flush out a piece of gum. 
    
    I always heard it was maraschino cherries.  
    In fact we were discussing it with our 8 yr old daughter 
    just last week. We had gone cherry picking and were having
    a ball picking one cherry, eating two. Everyone, except
    my daughter.  When asked *why* she wasn't trying out the 
    goods, she explained to us that it took 7 seven years for 
    each cherry to digest. We jokingly told her that was only
    for maraschino cherries. When she asked *why*, we didn't
    have a clue. Anyone know why such an urban legend exists?
    
    Jodi-
    

    RE:  maraschino cherries
    
    Because they are loaded with preservatives??
    
    Anyway, even if it took 7 years for your stomach to digest gum, your
    stomach would have long since passed the material (digested or not)
    into your intestine.  Nothing stays in your system for more than a
    couple of days from start to finish.
    
    Laura
    

    Wasn't that it takes 7 years to digest ... it turns to goo as soon as
    it's swallowed, and it takes that long for the last of the "goo" to
    get "un-gooed" (excuse the technical terms (-;) from your digestive
    tract.
    
    Patty
    

	At lunchtime, my husband reminded me of Emily's latest funny.

	For the last few weeks, when Daddy goes in to get Emily up
	and changed, she comes over to the side of the crib, smiles
	and says, "hi", then goes back searching in her crib for
	a stuffed cow (called Plunkett).  When she finds Plunkett, she
	lifts him up and hands him to Daddy.  She does it every morning,
	and every morning it makes us laugh!

	(We have no idea what started this ritual, or what we're supposed
	to do with Plunkett when we get him.  We've started to say Thank
	You, give him a kiss, and put him back in the crib.  Then we
	pick up Emily and change her.  Seems to work for her ...)

    If I have a problem with Sarah and boys while she's only 1 I can't
    imagine what's going to happen when she's a teenager.
    
    Sarah and I went to a birthday party on Saturday for the 4 yr old son
    of a friend of mine.  The 4 yr old (Kyle) has only met Sarah once, but
    his mother told me that she made a lasting impression on him and he is
    madly in love with her 8^)  He ran up to her and gave her hugs and
    kisses and kept trying to ply her affections with food.  When the smoke
    from the bbq began to blow in our direction, Kyle kept waving his arms
    to make the smoke go away.  When that didn't work he ran up to his
    father and said: "Daddy, please stop that, you're blowing smoke on
    Sarah."
    
    Then while they were busy opening presents another little boy, also
    around 4, kept coming by us in a Little Tykes car and inviting Sarah
    for a ride,  she could sit in his lap since there wasn't a lot of room
    inside.
    
    Needless to say, Sarah acted cool and played hard to get 8^)
    
    Susan

   This past weekend my husband was putting up some new siding and my son Derek
   who is 4 years old decided to get his tool box and help Dad out. So, about
   2 hours go by of banging and sawing, when Derek looked up at his father and
   said "Dad, are we fixing the house so it doesn't fall down ?"  

   Sometimes I believe, that if people looked at life like children do, this
   place would be alot better off.


	ps
   

    
    Mary, my daughter Anna's daycare provider, told me this one this
    morning. Yesterday  Anna was standing outside by the front steps
    and looked up at the house. She continued to look higher and higher up
    until she fell backwards to the ground. She layed there and said
    "Mary, you have new curtains", "Pretty curtains". Mary told Anna that
    no they weren't curtains, they were called awnings. Anna got up and
    went over to Mary and said "No Mary, curtains" and walked away to play.
    
    Patty

    RE: .334, ps

    You reminded me of when my almost 20 year old was 5.  His father got
    him a real tool kit, it has a few small screw drivers, a small hammer,
    and a few pliers.

    Brent informed us he was going to go out and fix something in the yard. 
    Well there was nothing he could hurt, or that could hurt him, so off we
    let him go!!

    After about 30 minutes we went to the door to see how he was doing with
    his "fixing".  Sure enough, he had fixed something......

    He'd fixed the doghouse into about a million pieces!  Totally
    dismantled it and piled it in a neat little pile, big pieces on
    bottom, working up to the smaller pieces on top.  We never did get it
    back together!

    WE also learned not to leave him in what we thought was a perfectly
    safe backyard with his tool kit!!!!  Who knows how long it would take
    to dismantle the shed, or even one end of the house!

    Things were a little too quiet yesterday evening, so we snuck a peek
    into Nick's room, only to find him stripped down to his underwear. He
    had a black Crayola washable (thank god!)  marker in his hand, and was
    painting spots and dots all over his body. He even went so far as to
    get in front of the mirror so that he could do the same to his face. We
    put a stop to it when he dropped his underpants and tried to paint his
    genitals...:^o
    
    When we asked what he was doing, he gave us his patented "How could it
    not be obvious? Are you totally dense?" look and said "I'm pretending
    to be a dalmatian!"
    
    He then insisted on hot dogs and beans for dinner: he pretended that
    the hot dog was a bone, and that the beans were dogfood. We drew the
    line at letting him eat from the bowl without using utensils :^)
    
    We're just glad he didn't try to imitate a chocolate lab....

    My niece pulled a good one the other night.  She is two years old and
    mom is trying to pursuade her to potty train.  She doesn't want
    anything to do with it for now.
    
    Well, Saturday morning she woke up - stood in the hall at the top of
    the stairs and yelled "DAD, I'M COLD!" while shivering.  My b-i-l went
    to see her and there she stood at the top of the stairs - naked as a
    jailbird - shivering.  Seems she had gone to bed the night before, was
    a little bored, so she took off all her clothes and diaper and went to
    bed covered in her blankets.  Since she isn't trained, she wet all
    night and woke up cold!  
    
    -sandy
    

    This should be in Dave Barry's It Really Happened, Honest file.
    
    Yesterday afternoon Ilona (age 2 1/2) was exhausted after a trip to the
    beach and no nap.  Can you say "cranky"?
    
    Her normal bedtime routine includes a bath.  She always climbs up on
    the toilet and takes a leak first.  No problem.  Usually.  
    
    Yesterday she got upset because a few grains of sand stuck to the
    toilet seat after I shook out her shoes.  I wiped the seat.  She was
    still upset.  Little did I know that the next 20 minutes would be the
    melodrama called "Cleaning the Toilet Seat."
    
    We sprayed the seat with my all-purpose cleaner.  Wiped with a sponge. 
    Sprayed repeatedly with Loni's water spray bottle.  Wipe again.  Dry
    with toilet paper.  Still no good.  Spray again.  Wipe again.  I got my
    reading glasses and did a close inspection.  Removed two small hairs. 
    (I have NEVER examined a toilet seat so closely in my life.)  Finally,
    the trick:  Dried the toilet seat with the blow dryer.  It was finally
    both dry and warm enough for Her Royal Hinie.
    
    Onward and upward, right?
    
    Laura

    and we wonder why our kids are spoiled
    
    My son would ask me to warm the seat for him on cold winter mornings!
    
    

    Laura, I can't wait to read your notes when Lonie is about thirteen...
    whew. 
    
    This reminded me of the time my neice, then two, jumped out of her
    bath and stood screaming "'pider! 'pider!" -- it turned out that there
    was a pubic hair in the tub, left by some previous user...
    
    Lucy

    "until she reaches 13" - I should live so long.
    
    This kid critiques my clothing!  Thank goodness she doesn't say
    anything negative (I hope she has intuitive good manners), but she
    plucks at the skirt on dresses she likes, looks closely at the fabric,
    and says, "Pretty."
    
    When she gets in a snit, she runs crying into her room, slams the door,
    yells "Go away", and throws herself onto the bed loudly weeping.
    
    This Really Happens, I'm Not Kidding.
    
    My friend, G., thinks this bright child should study music.  I said,
    "Yeah, she'd play a flawless twinkle-twinkle, then throw the violin at
    the wall during her next tantrum."
    
    Lord, give me the strength.  You should see the size of my
    multi-vitamins.
    
    L

    While mowing the lawn last evening, I looked up and saw my son-in-law,
    Doug, with Andrew, now 3 1/2.  Living about an hour away, Andrew
    doesn't usually just drop in during the week.  So, I asked him, "What
    brings you here today?"
    
    He answered, "My Daddy."
    
    Later, Doug was telling me that Andrew and Leslie had gone shopping,
    and all the way home, Leslie kept reminding Andrew that he wasn't to
    tell Daddy what they had bought him for Father's Day.  Andrew agreed
    that he would keep it a secret.
    
    Upon arriving home, he said, "We didn't buy you a shirt and pants for
    Father's Day, Daddy."
    
    Lee

    .353 reminded me of our wedding anniversary this year.  My husband
    had some flowers delivered (David [3] went to the door with Dad to receive
    them from the delivery man), and hid them on the back porch with strict
    instructions to David not to tell me. 
    
    "Mommy, there are some surprise flowers for you out back, but you can't
    have them now because it's a surprise!"
    
    Then, after I oo'd and ahh'd over them, I said it was nice of Daddy to
    give me these pretty flowers, to which David replied:
    
    "Daddy didn't give those to you. The flower man did". 

>    "until she reaches 13" - I should live so long.
    
>    This kid critiques my clothing!  Thank goodness she doesn't say
>    anything negative 
    
>    When she gets in a snit, she runs crying into her room, slams the door,
>    yells "Go away", and throws herself onto the bed loudly weeping.
    
>    This Really Happens, I'm Not Kidding.

Funny, Lara IS almost 13, and she does exactly the same things, except that 
she doesn't refrain from saying negative things ("geek" is a typical 
description of my taste in clothes).

Clay
    

I hate to admit my personal failures at being a mother but this cracks me
up....  

Sean (18 months) and I were playing a word game the other day to show his
grandparents (who hadn't seen him in a while) all the words that he knows.
It went something like this:

   Me:     Sean, say 'Mommy'
   Sean:   Mommy
   Me:     Say 'Daddy'
   Sean:   Daddy
   Me:     Say 'Kitty'
   Sean:   Kitty
   Me:     Say 'Tractor'
   Sean:   Tractor (all the above with a big smile)
   Me:     Say 'Please'
   Sean:   NO!!!!!  (shouted at the top of his lungs)!

He says Thank You, but has developed this personal adversion to Please!

Oh well.......

      

    
    Last night as Jason (3-1/2+) and I were on our way home from his
    sitter's, I reminded him that next Thursday was Mary's (his sitter)
    birthday, that she was born in June
    
    J: *I* was born in September, he says quite proudly.
    Me:  And Mama was born in May.
    J:  No, you weren't.
    Me: Well, yes I was.
    J:  No, Mama, you were born in a hospital.  Don't you
        remember???  You told me you were born in a hospital,
        not in May! 
    
    8-)
    

  Not exactly 'funny', but interesting.  Over the weekend I picked up 1.5
  cars (BMW Isettas, about 7.5' long and 5' wide) and have left them on the
  trailer in the driveway.  Anthony (4.5 yrs) likes to mimick what I do, if I'm
  working on one of our cars, he has to borrow a jack and some jack stands
  so he can crawl under his pedal go-cart or big wheel.
  
  So, when I got home yesterday I found him riding his bike around the
  cul-de-sac with his red wagon in tow (with about 5 feet of rope) and his
  go-cart up on top of the trailer.
  
  Sometimes I miss the subtle things he does to imitate me, but this was
  pretty obvious!
  
  Dave

    .359> Over the weekend I picked up 1.5 cars
    
    What did you do with the other half a car?
    
    :-)
    
    Leslie

  Actually it was 1 frame and 2 bodies.  Maybe we'll make another club
  house out of the spare body....:-)
  
  Dave

This morning, Nicholas (2.10 yrs) was still asleep at 7:00.  So  I went in to
gently wake him up (He is a BEAR if woken up before he is ready!!)  I went in
and kissed his little cheek and he looked at me and said Go away!!  He then
covered himself up in his blanket.  So I decided to give him 5 more minutes.
As I headed for the door, he yelled after me.....


         ...And close the door!!!!


Just like his Mom!!

Deb

	Emily, 1 year old, was playing in my room as I dried my hair
	on Friday morning.  I had to put my brush down, and when I did,
	Emily made a bee-line for it.  I noticed her brush on my dresser,
	so we traded, and I went back to drying my hair.  I bent at
	the waist and tipped my head over to dry the roots.  All of a sudden,
	I felt something tugging at my hair.  

	I glanced up, and there was Emily, grinning from ear to ear as she
	brushed my hair with her little brush.

    I have started Lindsay in timeouts. She is 17 months old and I didn't
    think she understood.  Yesterday she went into the corner herself
    (although she hadn't done anything) and stood there and kept telling 
    me "calk, calk, CALK!"  She wanted me to set the clock so I made it 
    ding and she released herself from her self-punishment!  

    
    Peter is 11 months, and has become quite the imitator.
    
    Yesterday I was fixing a screen door by pushing the rubber "bead" back
    into its channel witha screwdriver.  Peter had a plastic rod, and
    proceeded to nudge me out of the way so HE could do the job!
    
    my little tear-it-apart andd fix-it person!
    
    Jamd

    Matt, at age about 4.5 loves 911 and any emergency related show...
    paramedics the whole bit.
    
    My wife found him bare chested with red stripes all over his chest one
    morning. He had put them on with magic marker for 'demoulage',
    imitation wounds.  They would not come off easily with soap and water.
    Matt was not allowed to use the permanent magic markers so she was a
    bit miffed at him.  He had swimming lessons that morning.  When Matt
    showed up for swimming he had the 'wounds' all over his chest.  I
    guess the kids made some fun of it.
    
    Nothing like a demo to teach a kid.
    
    Jeff

    
    Lindsey (2.75 yrs) and I were watching a video of my wedding.
    Shortly after the part where John was removing the garter from my
    leg, she ran upstairs and said, "Dadda, did you find momma's glass
    slipper?"  I didn't realize how much I looked like Cinderella that day
    ;^)
    
    Then later on, we were watching scenes of a full dance floor and
    lots of people having a great time.
    Lindsey said, "but momma, I can't find me anywhere!" I didn't have the
    heart to tell her she wasn't even a thought in our minds yet...
    
    Kathy

The other night we went to a concert.  I told Nicole (3 yrs) that if she
was good and helped take care of her baby brother that we could go to
Target the next day and pick out a treat.  She has been asking for some
of Snow White's animal friends.

Well she was very good so off we went to Target.  We got to the toy aisle
with all the Disney character dolls (Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping
Beauty etc.).  We looked around and I did not see anything that remotely
looked like any of the animal friends.

Mom:  Nicole, I don't see any of Snow White's animal friends.

Nicole:  I don't either...But that's ok Mom, you can buy me Princess Jasmine
         instead...

How do they learn these negotiation skills so early?

Barbara

	Last night while we were taking a walk, Emily appeared to be eating
	something.  I leaned over to see what she might have found in her
	stroller, just to see her grab some imaginary morsel out of the
	air, pop "it" in her mouth, and pretend to eat it.  She did it
	once more before my laughing interrupted.

	Maybe she was reminding me that it was supper time ???

	Karen

    
    well it ain't funny, but it is good!
    
    Heather is 9 months 3 weeks and 4 days. We put the kiddie gate across
    the patio door yesterday as it was hot and the kids get splinters when
    they walk out onto the deck.
    
    Well blow me if Heather doesn't put her knee on the wood halfway up,
    climbs up and ends up standing on the top of the gate, holding onto the 
    edge of the patio door! She doesn't even walk yet,.... Billie her sister 
    just stands there looking up in wonderment!
    
    Simon

    re -2
    
    Reminds me of one evening last week - Christopher, 22 months old,
    was sitting outside in the sandbox after supper, happily munching on
    something. It dawned on me that he hadn't gone outside with anything
    so I asked him to show me what he was eating - he did - a piece of
    dog food!
    

Simon

Turn that gate around....I have a monkey of a child too but they can go
over the top and get hurt....

    
    
    re:     Well blow me if Heather doesn't put her knee on the wood
    halfway up,
    
    
    NO thanks ! 

    I don't know why I spend so much money on toys when the strangest
    things excite my daughter to no end.
    
    Sarah's favorite toy as of late:  a toothbrush!  Sarah (13.5 months)
    accompanies us in the bathroom when we get ready in the morning, at
    first she would watch us brush our teeth and then open her mouth so
    that we could brush her teeth, too.  But, now she has to have her own
    brush so that she can do all 10 of her teeth anytime she wants.  If
    it's not nearby and she feels the urge she yells BUSH, BUSH and tries
    to go upstairs into the bathroom where her toothbrush resides.
    
    Susan

    My Loni, age 2 1/2, is on vacation with her Dad and his family at
    Smuggler's Notch, Vermont.  All reports so far are glowing about the
    resort, btw.  She is very proud to be "on vacation".  This is the first
    time she understands what that means.
    
    Loni is on the bumpy road to toilet training.  She often forgets to say
    she has to go, or just doesn't feel like using the toilet.  The usual. 
    
    When Dad told her she must TELL him when she has to go, she responded,
    "I don't have to tell you.  I'm on vacation!"
    
    Laura

    David (3.5) was trying to explain something to his Dad, but Dad was
    just not getting it.  
    
    With an exaggerated sigh, David said: 
    
    "Oh, for cryin' out Pete's sake, I'm done talkin' to you."
    
    Dad felt extremely foolish : )
    Sarah

    
    we went camping in the backyard, and its dark. Sure enough 10pm and the
    adults are nearly asleep and the twins are roaming on hands and knees. 
    Well, they crawl up on either side of me, and (smack!) I get one eye 
    slapped. A second later, (smack!), my other eye gets slapped by the 
    other twin.
    
    I think they were after my glasses, they're used to making a grab for
    them. No glasses, my eye gets in the way 8-)
    
    Ahh Fatherhood, a unique experience! And the other weekend thing, is
    they fall asleep either side of me with their heads on my
    stomach. Cuties. After 30 minutes, starting to ache a little. Cat sits
    on my chest,... 45 minutes, hurting quite a lot now, would really like
    to wiggle a little, 50 minutes, phone rings, can't move, Alice brings
    out portable phone and I hold a serious work conversation lying on my back
    under kids and cats, with the sun on me. Around the hour mark I decide 
    enough is enough and shake them all off! Thank G-d we don't have a
    hairy lickey dog!
    
    Simon

I was sitting on the floor matching socks and my left leg fell asleep.  After
telling my wife I would be there a few minutes longer, to let it recover, she
said to the kids "Kids, go jump on your Daddy's foot!"  Why, when they never
listen and take threats of spanking to do *anything*, do they come running over
and pounce on my leg and foot??

Fortunately they picked the wrong one....:-)

Dave

    AJ is 6.5, and is going through a stage of daddy is the ultimate good
    guy in the world.  A little more background, dad is taking classes
    until 10p.m. two nights a week, and leaves for work before AJ wakes up,
    so there can be a couple days in a row that he never sees his dad.  The
    usual routine is that as soon as dad leaves for work, usually 6:15 to
    6:30a.m. I wake him up, we do our thing and leave.  This morning he
    wandered out of his room and hit the bathroom for his morning ritual,
    then wandered in the kitchen where I was making AJ's lunch.  My husband
    had had class last night, and AJ was asleep yesterday morning and last
    night, so it had been since the night before that he had seen dad.
    
    All of a sudden I hear this squeel of of glee and hear "daddy's home!"
    and he goes bounding up the stairs to wakeup dad.  Seems dad had come
    home and just thrown his keys on the counter, and AJ put two and two
    together, and realized if dad's keys are there, then dad must be home!
    
    
    Oh and another, last week he was giving us a hard time sitting long
    enough on the toilet to completely "do his thing", he was starting to
    have a few minor poop accidents.  When I asked AJ what was going on, he
    answered that "dad took his magazine out of the bathroom, and I've got
    nothing to do in here!"  So this must be where the habit of reading in
    the bathroom starts!!
    
    Lyn

    Lyn
    
    My son drags in a bucket of toys!  Then he hollers for his little
    brother to come in and play while he does his thing!!!
    
    UGH!  There must be a better way!
    
    -sandy
    

    Along the lines of both my .379 and my discuusion in 235 here's
    something I just had to laugh at, but at the same time being careful
    not to laugh *at* him.
    
    My niece, who will be 8 in a couple weeks, and nephew 5.5 were staying
    with us this past weekend.  Due to the heat the kids, and *this*
    grownup "kid" spent a good amount of time in the pool.  Yesterday when
    my father inlaw came to collect the kids they were again in the pool. 
    I sent the boys to AJ's room to change, and my neice to the bathroom. 
    I asked my niece and nephew to hand me their suits so I could send them
    home in a plastic bag, I instructed AJ to take his out and hang is on
    the railing of the deck.  I just happened to turn around in time to see
    AJ heading for the deck, wet suit in hand.  For that I was pleased! 
    BUT he was Stark NAKED.  He sort of had his priorities mixed up, he
    told me he HAD to put his suit out to dry FIRST! 
    
    I gently steered him back to his room, and suggested that there were
    *girls* present, and he ought to get dressed first.  I swear this kid
    has no modesty whatsoever!  I also spent much of the weekend reminding
    him to please shut the bathroom door, with the same explaination!
    
    Oh but he was very quick to remind me to pull up my bathing suit
    straps, since last weekend I was in the pool and had the spagetti
    straps down to avoid the old strap line in the tan.  Trouble is that AJ
    grabbed me at one point and down came the whole top half!  Fortunate
    the pool is only 3 feet deep, and as I've said he has no modesty so
    this didn't bother him (or so I thought until yesterday) and it's
    secluded behind the house so no neighbors were able to see anything.
    
    

    	Regarding closing the bathroom while using it:

    	It has been almost 5 years since I have been able to pee behind
    closed doors,

    	First it was the cats who would howl to be let in.

    	Then it was the dog who would scratch to be let in.

    	Then we had (baby) Spencer and I wouldn't close the door in case I
    couldn't hear him.

    	Then we had (toddler) Spencer and I couldn't close the door
    because he wanted to be in also.

    	Now we have (baby) Griffin.

    	and it goes on and on and on.

    	It's gotten to the point, I forget to close the door when visiting
    friends houses. 


    				Wendy
                                     

    Loni had her first personal joke with me last week.
    
    I taught her that my name is Laura.  We then pretended that my name is
    Loni and her name is Laura.  She laughed and said, "This is our joke! 
    I'm Laura.  You're Loni.  Our joke!"  And she pointed from her chest to
    mine.
    
    I love these firsts!
    
    Laura

    
    re .-2, (Wendy)
    
    I think the first thing that disappears with parenthood is privacy. I
    was in the bathroom peacefully doing my thing this weekend when the twins 
    come in to crawl around, dog comes in to see the fuss,  and the cats stand
    outside watching. Then the twins see a small opening to the bowl and
    they're standing there trying to stuff their hands in the water!
    
    in fact the only person nowher near was Alice my wife, she must have
    chosen to wash her hair another time!
    
    Simon

    Last night my ever so modest 6 year old asked me to get his shower
    ready.  As I was testing the water temp he began to undress.  He had on
    a long shirt and was undressing the bottom half.  He quickly pulled his
    shirt down to cover "it" and said, "Oh, you've seen it before! 
    Remember when I was pregnant with you?"  "Don't you mean when *I* was
    pregnant with you?" - "No, we were pregnant together, remember?"
    
    I loved it!!!
    
    -sandy
    

This morning when I asked my just-turned-2-yr-old son, Collin if he could
help Mommy get out of bed (6 mos. pregnant and it's a waterbed...), he
gleefully said "Yeah" and came running over with arm extended to help pull
me up.  As soon as I was on my feet, he exclaimed "Oh, that's a heavy one!"

I had to dive back in bed since I was laughing so hard and my husband
got quite a kick out of it too! Kids - gotta love 'em (even when they're too
honest).

-Cori

    Took my nephew (4.5 years old) camping with us last week. He was
    telling a friend next door all the great things he did with us, which
    included:
    
    1. "We went to the beach and saw a shark." Ok, we saw a school of fish in
    the channel, and some of them were pretty large, so I let that one
    pass.  The next one confounded me so much, I have no idea where it came
    from!
    2. "We went to a HUGE zoo, and I rode on a YAK!" 
    
    How did I miss that?
    
    Sarah
    

Elise was interested when I was breast-feeding
Sarah.  In her words, "Sarah eats you nickles".
(Yes, "you nickles", not "your nipples".  
She has since gotten that straightened out).  
She has also pulled up her shirt at daycare to 
feed the baby dolls, among other mommy role-playing 
things.

But, the other day she was taking a shower with
her father and asked him if he has milk in his
nickles.  He said no, because he's a daddy, not
a mommy.

Then a minute later she says, "You have juice 
nickles."

    
    Sophie used to imitate my nursing with her dolls when Peter first came home.
    
    We also talked about how special it was because only girls can make
    'mommy's milk'.
    
    imagine my lack of answers, then, when SHE wanted to nurse Peter!
    
    
    :->
    Jamd

    Grandson Andrew, now 3 1/2, is visiting this week.  
    
    We had just finished playing soccer in the yard, and I took off my
    shirt.  He asked me if he could take his off, and I said okay.
    
    He looked at me, then himself, and said:  "My Mommy has big boobies. 
    But my Daddy has little boobies like me."
    
    Lee
    
    

    My sister had sent her 2 yr old up to her room yesterday for a nap. 
    However, the little one had better ideas.  Mom heard her wandering
    around upstairs into daddy's office, etc. when she finally hollered up
    to get back in bed.  Chelsea skampered around a bit more, so mom made
    the request again - this time a little louder and hopefully with more
    gusto...Chelsea stomped back to her room yelling "Stop giving me such a
    hard time!" and slammed the door.
    
    
    All I could think was Who took my niece and where did this teenager 
    come from????
    

	As we were leaving for work this morning, I told Emily to
	come with Mommy.  She had just picked something up off the floor,
	and she toddled off in the opposite direction from me.  I watched
	her for a minute, and she went over to our indoor tree.  She took
	the leaf she had picked up off the floor, and tried to put it
	back on the tree!

	Karen

    At daycare my daughter group was weaving string thru cardboard.
    Well..my girl weave string thru both ends of the square to make a
    handle which she then throws over her shoulder like a pocketbook. 
    She then stands up and walks over the her teacher and prounces as she
    sticks out her right hand "GO'N SHOP'N WHANT DA MONEY".
    
    She has been given several pocketbooks by her grandmothers and they
    always have a dollar bill in them.
    
    She comes by shopping desires naturally because I come from a long
    line of professional "bargin" shoppers.

    I guess AJ has my patterns all figured out, my husband called earlier
    today to relate a conversation they had on the way to daycare:
    
    AJ:  Dad are you going to pick me up tonight at school?
    Dad: No I have to go to school tonite
    
    (very long pause..... then)
    AJ:  Oh, that's OK that means mom and me can go OUT to eat tonight,
    	think I'll ask for McDonalds!
    
    I guess my son has his mother well figured out, but I didn't think I
    had done it THAT often!!
    
    
    and I've got to add this one, because there has to be one light side of
    every disaster...
    
    A couple weeks ago in the car we were listening to the "extended"
    version of "bye bye Miss American Pie", and AJ went home and started
    singing it to his dad.
    
    Then came the reports of the disaster in the Mid west, and the news
    reports almost daily of Levi's breaking.  AJ pops up yesterday with a
    statement that was so innocently cute I just had to take a step back.
    
    But mom, all they have to do is take the CHEVY to the LEVI, and it will
    stay dry!!
    
    (Remeber the line in the song "Drove my Chevy to the Levy, but the Levy 
     was dry)
    

   RE:  .394
    
    Sorry, Lyn, couldn't help it:

   > Then came the reports of the disaster in the Mid west, and the news
   > reports almost daily of Levi's breaking. 
    
    I know things are exciting out there, but the news didn't mention those
    hot Iowans busting out of their 501 jeans! :-)
    
    It's spelled levee (from the French to raise) not Levi, a brand name.  
    
    Thanks for raising my afternoon,
    ;-)
    Laura    

    
    The other day I was in using the bathroom at home when Michael (21 mos)
    came in. He did his usual putterin around, and then as I stood up from
    the toilet, he yells out a big...."GOOD JOB!!!"
    
    I couldn't help but laugh! The next time I found out there was a 3 yr
    old at daycare ptty training and that where he had heard it!
    
    They keep you laughing!
    Chris
    

    I thought I had been doing a good job of censoring my language since
    I've been a parent, but apparently not well enough...
    
    The other night, Nick (3) was drinking some apple juice from a cup
    and accidentally spilled the entire contents on to the floor. He was
    a little upset about it (mainly because he soaked his Ninja Turtles
    T-shirt in the process), so rather than scolding him, I bit my tongue
    and helped him clean up. Expecting an apology, I asked him: "Now what
    do you say?" His response?
    
    	"DAMN IT!"
    
    It took every ounce of effort to keep from laughing out loud...
    
    Freddie
    

    When I was dropping Daniel, aged 19 1/2 months off to his
    day-care-provider this morning, she told him, her daughter was still up
    in bed.   Daniel's reply was "ah Jesus".   I can tell you, both her
    and me had to look away, as the tears were running down our eyes with
    the laugh.
    
    
    Bernie

    My husband was taking care of my 2 1/2 yr. old last night while I went
    out for an hour and he was really beat from a difficult day at work.
    When I came home, he related the following story:
    
    - Daddy:   "I'm really tired, Caroline"
    - Caroline (holding her favorite blanket "ni-ni", holds it out to him
    and says..): "want to share some, daddy?"
    
    

    We had to go visit my mother in law in the hospital last night.  When
    we walked into the hospital room there were a lot of people there to
    see my MIL - most of which were MEN.........my daughters biggest fear.
    From the moment we stepped into the room Natasha had here eyes crunched 
    closed so she couldn't see anyone.  In her mind if I can't see them,
    they won't bother me.  If someone touched her arm or tried to say hello
    she'd crunch her eyes even tighter.  She sat on my lap for 1 hour doing
    the crunching eyes tight bus.....it looked so cute because her lashes are 
    extremely long.  The very moment we were out of the hospital room door 
    she acutually asked, 
    
     "WHERE DID GAMMIE (GRAMMIE) GO....she guts a hurt'n?, WHERE DID UNCLE 
      STEVE GO, WHERE DID GRAMPIE GO"  
    
         - All the way home (1/2 hr) she asked, but wouldn't give them
           the time of day while she was with them.
     
    
    I definately have a dude with a tude.......and she's so cute!
    
    
    This is the very first time she ever did the eye thing!

    re :-1
    Avanti (our 4 yr old little lady) was the same way and sometimes can be
    even now but she does not shut her eyes anymore. This morning she came
    with me to work to have breakfast in our cafeteria (something she has
    been asking to do for a long time). She was fascinated to see the
    Dunkin' Donuts booth when she was here once. Anyway, the people that I
    work with stopped to say hi to Avanti, but she would not say anything
    and just be very clingy to me. I just thought that she was having one
    of her "I am very shy" mornings. 
    
    
    Then it struck me like a bolt of lightning....all these people are
    strangers to her and I tell her not to talk to strangers. I did not
    tell her that if she is with Mommy or Daddy and we tell it is OK to say
    hi to s stranger that she could. All I could do was slap myself on the
    forehead.
    
    Kids can be so straight forward. Sigh! Only if we adults could work
    that way.
    
    Shaila

	Emily, 14 months, is learning animal sounds.  She's got Doggie
	down pat, or so we thought.
	We were playing Saturday night, and I asked, "Emily, what does
	Sadie say ?" (Sadie's our dog).  Emily replied, "HI!"

	Daddy and I were rolling...

    Charlotte's Oma (grandmother) read a book about animals to her and 
    made all the animal sounds. Now, when she looks at the book she 
    points to the calf and says "mmmmmm" (Moo). And she points to the 
    lambs and says "mmmmm" and she points to the puppies and says
    "mmmmm". (you get the idea).
    
    Her other favourite trick is EVERY time she sees an analog clock or
    watch, or even when someone says "Charlotte what does a clock do?"
    She'll say "tick tick tick tick".
    
    Monica

    Yesterday, after my son Shane (3 tomorrow) told me that he was going to 
    marry Alissa (a little girl at his sitter's) the following conversation
    took place:
    
    Me: "Are you going to buy her a diamond?"
    Shane: "I already did".
    Me: "Wow, How much did you pay for it?" 
    Shane: "Nine, two, zero".
    Me: "Really?  Where did you get it?"
    Shane: "Moulas" (Demoulas)
    
    Lori B.

    Every night when I get home, I put the news on while we're getting
    dinner ready.  Natasha who's usually playing at her table in the same
    room usually plays independently.  Last week as newscenter 5 ran there
    little promo, I heard Natasha repeat at the exact moment in a very
    serious voice: 
    
    "Channel 5 news arounnn da coc" 
         
           ......while never looking up from her colourforms.
    
    
    And everytime since, she's done the same thing.  She's so funny.
              

    This weekend David and I were having a discussion (well okay a little
    argument), when I went into the kitchen Katelyn followed me and asked
    why I was angry with Daddy to which I replied "oh daddy's just being 
    a little pig headed".  Katie says "he's not a pig he's my daddy but 
    maybe he looks like a pig" (Katie's almost three).  I cracked up and
    had to run in and tell her Daddy who didn't think it was as funny as
    I did ;>)

    While we're on the animal sounds topic...
    
    This past weekend we were on our way to a friend's in Maine.  As we
    exited the turnpike, a car that was traveling too fast trying to enter 
    the turnpike squealed the tires trying to make the corner.  When
    Brittany, (21 months) heard it, she yelled "HORSIE!"  
     

    
    Out of the blue yesterday, Sophie (3.5) announced "I Hafta tell you
    about something I've wanted for year and years and years!  it's a
    kitty!
    
    ME:  HOW long have you wanted a kitty?
    
    Sophie:  for FIVE years!

My daughter Breanne made a friend while we were camping a couple weeks ago.

She told her friends father about falling down and bumping her head at
daycare - she told him it happened about 6 years ago.  He said oh, really,
how old are you?  She's only 4......

    David (3.5) is just beginning to get the idea that the clock helps us
    understand what time to get up, what time to eat, and what time to go
    to bed.  We were riding in the car yesterday and he point at the
    digital clock and SHOUTED:
    
    David : Mom!  It's way past my bed time!
    Me    : Oh? What time does that clock say?
    David : Fifty-thousand o'clock! No wonder I'm so tired!
    
    It was actually a bit past his bed time, but not THAT far past it!
    
    Sarah

    We've been promising my 2.5 year old that we would buy him a tricycle
    this weekend.  We're planning to go to Toys R Us, which is about 10 
    miles up the highway from our town.  Last night I was explaining to 
    him how we would go to the store together and pick out his new bike.
    He replied, "Then you and Daddy can drive home and I'll follow you
    on my bike."

	Every morning, Emily (14 months), has Cheerios and a cup of milk.
	On the days I work, she gets breakfast at Grandma's.  On the weekends,
	she'll usually play a little while before having her Cheerios, then
	breakfast follows after everyone has showered, etc.  

	Sunday, we decided to go out for breakfast before church, and in
	the rush to get ready, no one gave Emily her Cheerios.  After about
	an hour of playing while Mommy got ready, Emily left my room and went
	to the kitchen.  I heard a cabinet close, and went to see what Emily
	was doing.  She met me in the hallway with the big box of Cheerio's,
	and handed them to me.  She had THE biggest grin on her face.  I
	laughed for 5 minutes! 

    My wife and son just returned from a month's stay in Indiana.
    Nancy goes there every year for a month to help her aging mother,
    and takes Tobias, now age 7, with her.
    
    This year, just before they left to return home here, my mother-in-law
    asked Tobias if he was coming again next year.
    
    Tobias said "I really don't have much of a choice."
    
    That broke up everybody.

    Avanti (4 yrs) told Daddy in a stern way:
    
    Daddy, you must mow the lawn on weekdays. If you mow on Stay-home-days
    (holidays) then you cannot spend time with us.
    
    Daddy has decided to mow on weekdays.
    
    Shaila
    
    Mom_of_a_little_replica_of_mom

    Grammie & Grampy are visiting for a few days and took Nick to McDonalds
    for lunch. He got a Happy Meal (of course), and when I got home, he
    showed me his prize: "Look Dad, it's Sleepy...he's a dorf!"

    Ha!  Love it!  My son looked up at a billboard advertising the movie
    and said "Hey Mom, look! Snow White and the Seven Dorks!"  He's 3.5,
    and that combination of DW is a killer!
    Sarah

    We have always taught AJ that we "have no secrets in our house". 
    Implied in the sense that he can tell us anything good or bad, and
    hoping to evoke honesty and open communications.
    
    Last weekend my husband and I were hemming and hawing about what to do
    about supper, the discussion came around to do we do McDonalds,
    ChuckECheese, the new Wendy's or even drop down to see his parents, our
    niece and nephew and thier father who was visiting for the weekend. 
    The discussion ended up being a "whisper in my ear" sort of adult
    conversation, so as not to evoke raised hopes then dashed hopes
    
    Suddenly I've got this little body between us announcing
    
    "WE DON"T HAVE SECRETS IN THIS HOUSE!!"
    
    	Ummm ya, OK.

    This morning I was driving to work with my 2.5 year old in the back
    seat.  At an intersection, another car ran a stop light and almost hit
    my car.  I was so scared and mad that I muttered "Jesus" under my 
    breath.  (I wouldn't normally say something like that, but I was really
    shaken.)  
    
    We were OK, though, and a moment later were continuing to drive 
    down the road.  My little boy said to me, "Mommy, you shouldn't
    say 'Jesus'.  It's not a word we say."  I was so proud that he had
    learned what we had been trying to teach him -- not to take the
    Lord's name in vain.  So I replied, "Yes, that's right, we don't
    say that word."  To which my son replied, "Right, we say,
    'Oh my God!'"
    

	This morning on the way to work, Emily was making funny
	noises from the back seat.  My husband turned around and noticed
	she had her fingers in her mouth, and was trying to whistle like
	Daddy does.  So, Daddy demonstrates his whistle, and Emily tries
	again.  This goes on for about three tries, at which point Emily
	sticks her fingers in her mouth, and lets out a little shriek, which
	sounded just like a whistle.  Daddy said, "Hey, you're cheating!"

	I had tears in my eyes from laughing...

    The other day I was setting up an activity at the play room table, my
    daughter (almost 2) announces to me after we had already sat down 
    (she was sitting on the on the inside seat):
    
    	Cuse me Mommy (as she pushes behind the back of my chair), 
        you wait heeeear, I be back in a minute
                      (then she goes running out)
    
    She then runs into the bathroom (not in view) and gets a tissue. She
    comes back and gives me one and and she takes one & then proceeds to
    wipe her nose.
    
    Natasha knows Mommy is forever asking Daddy for tissues during allergy
    season.  The box near our activity always seems to be out.
    
    .......I cracked up!                            
    

    My 2 yr old niece was in the car the other day with mom and little
    brother (now 6 wks old).  The baby was crying and fussing and my niece
    looks over and him and yells "SHEA!  Stop giving me a hard time!"
    
    Gee where do they hear these things!
    
    -s
    

    I was getting Natasha ready for bed the other night when she looked out
    the bathroom window (she wanted to see the moon....she needs to know
    it's where abouts every night).  From our second floor bathroom window 
    you couldn't see the moon; however, she just kept pointing out the window 
    and saying, "want dat, want to hold it".  When I told her it was a street 
    light outside and we couldn't hold it, she gave me this face like why not 
    Mommy, then she kept saying:
     
         "hold it, want it, hold it...........pleeeeeeeeeeeeassse" 
      (in her mind you say please whenever you really want something).
    
    Ever since that night, she peeks out the window to see if street lights
    still there.
    
    Also, everytime she goes into the second floor bedroom she goes to the 
    window in which we watched the fireworks on the fourth.  She wants to know 
    where the fireworks go.  I'm amazed that 1 night for 20 minutes of
    works has stayed so fresh in her memory.  If she hasn't gone into that 
    bedroom during the night she'll ask me as I tuck her in........"Mommy, 
    where did the fireworks go??"  I tried to tell her that they'll be back 
    next year......but obviously this concept is to far out of her reach yet.
    

    re -1
    
    That reminds me of a story with my other niece (now 13).  When she was
    2 we were during down rt 91 in Vermont.  She saw a car with a toy
    monkey hanging from the rearview mirror.  We had talked about that
    funny monkey, so this probably stuck in her mind.
    
    About two years later, we were driving down that same road and she
    asked us where the car with the monkey was.
    
    We all had to think about that one!
    
    -sandy
    

    After visiting my parents this weekend, my husband was explaining to
    the kids how very sick Pepe was.
    
    Daddy:  You know, Pepe may not live long, his heart is in bad shape.
    
    Jonathan:  Is it a circle?
    
    

    Samantha woke up this morning while daddy was up stairs making coffee.
    I have been hving a hard time with her in the mornings that he leaves
    for work early (she's daddys girl in the morning!) - I've tried
    everything I could think of to calm her down when he's not there.  So,
    the other day I told her that Daddy was at work making money so that
    we could buy her new clothes and toys....It didn't help then but...
    
    This morning when I got her up, put her in bed with me and the first
    thing she asked was, "Where's daddy, makin' money?"
    
    I cracked up!
    

    Last night after I had gotten ready for bed, my three year old son came
    into my bedroom and picked up my brassiere and said, "Mommy, is this
    for boobies?"  I said, "Yes".  He then put his arms through the straps
    and said, "Not for my boobies".  I cracked up!
    
    Lori B.

   I have this running joke with my wife that our daughter Elizabeth is
   only "visiting this planet".  She will be 3yrs old next month, and she
   is, well, flighty, I guess I'd call it.  Her imagination is very well
   developed, and she can go on for quite a while about nothing - she
   makes up stories very well and pretends with almost everything.
   
   This morning she was flitting around the kitchen dancing and singing
   about something... it came up in the conversation that she was going
   some where... I turned around and laughingly suggested Earth.  I
   didn't really think she knew what I was getting at - my wife and I had
   a little chuckle - but then she turned to us and said...
   

   But Earth is so very very far away!
   
   Maybe she really *is* only visiting this planet.... :-)  :-)
   
   - Tom

We were dishing out ice cream to ourselves and our two kids, when our son
Anthony (4.5 yrs) brought his dish back and said "But Mom, I don't want this
much ice cream." (!!)

My wife asked much he wanted and he said "More!"

Dave

    -.1 reminds me of my young charge when I was a mother's helper.  Tad's
    mom (foolishly, I thought) asked how much ice cream he wanted; he
    considered for a moment and then replied,
    					      "TOO much!"
    
    Leslie

    
    	I once asked my daughter that (foolish) question,
    		How much ice cream do you want?
    
    	After the very thoughtful look she said, 
    
    
    	"All of it!"

    My youngest, now 4, has been toilet trained for over 6 months, yet
    still refuses to wipe himself.
    
    When he's all done, he just calls out,
    
    "Mom!  It's your lucky day!"
    
    
    ;-)

    I was talking with my sister-in-law about her new job and my niece,
    Jill, broke in to say "My mom has the COOLEST office!".  I asked
    "Really, what's so great about it?"  She looked at me like I was nuts
    and said "Nothing.  It's just really cold."

    My Alex is SO funny!!  This morning as I was getting ready for work
    he said to me, "Mom, don't fix your hair like a LADY!!"  I said, 
    "Alex, honey, I AM a lady."  He said, "NO you're NOT!!  You're a MAMA!!"
    
    Silly me, how could I be so confused?????
    
    Linette ;)
    
    

    
    	Emily (15 months today) has taken to walking on her toes.
    
    	When I put her down, her heels don't touch ground.  She'll
    	wander around on her toes for about 10 minutes, walk normally
    	for a minute, then go back to the toes.  I don't know if
    	she wishes she were taller, or is hoping to be a ballerina
    	one day!!
    
    	She's even learning to run that way!
    
    

    Charlotte (Emily's May 92 buddy) has shown the same tendancy to 
    walk on her toes (My mother said I did this too). I think its 
    because they can see more! Obviously its GOT to be more interesting
    up there out of my reach!
    
    Charlotte's other favourite thing: having everybody sing "I'm a little
    tea pot" to her. From the moment she gets up in the morning; she will
    hum and twist her arms and tip her head "here is my handle and here is
    my spout". I wonder what strangers think of my little contortionist
    when she twists around like that in public!
    
    Monica 

>    Charlotte (Emily's May 92 buddy) has shown the same tendancy to 
>    walk on her toes (My mother said I did this too). I think its 
>    because they can see more! Obviously its GOT to be more interesting
>    up there out of my reach!

Walking on toes is extremely common and normal ... something to do with
stretching the heel and leg ligaments and tendons ... our 3 did it too.
They end up flat on their feet fairly quickly, then on their toes again
looking to see what's on the tables ! :-)

Stuart

    re: .425
    
    Cute...reminds me of a day when Nick wanted me to stay home from work.
    (Kathy works 3 days/wk, so they stay home Mon/Thu). As I hugged him I
    jokingly replied: "Well, *someone* in this house had to go make some
    money!" When I returned that evening, he met me at the door and asked:
    "Daddy, did you make any money today?" When i said yes, he replied:
    "Can I see it?"
    
    Freddie
     

    We were on vacation in Chicago last week, during which was my birthday.
    Since Kathy didn't want to lug presents there and back, she and the
    kids had a small birthday party for me the night before we left. As
    they brought out the presents, Nick asked me: "Daddy, do you know what
    we got you?" I replied: "It's a secret." He answered: "Wrong! it's a 
    drill!"
    
    Freddie

    I must preface this story with a little information....

    Our best friends include Mike - a firefighter, EMT, ambulance driver.
    My 5 year-old son, Marc, thinks Mike is the *best*. Mike is a big bear
    of a man - just the sort of person you would want helping you in a
    emergency situation. Pretty tough competition for a Dad who just goes to
    a brick and glass office building each day.

    Anyway....

    I had the step ladder in the living room to clean the blades of the
    overhead fan. Marc asked if he could climb up it - I said "sure!".

    Some things Marc approaches with no thought to his safety, others he is
    a little hesitant. Climbing up the step ladder proved to be a little
    stressful for him. He asked that I stand close. From his comment, he
    must have thought about careers on his way down the ladder - because
    when he reached the floor he turned to me and said:

     "I don't know Dad... I don't think I could do that. I'll just go to
    work each day and do nothing important, like you do."

    I nearly bit through my lip.

    They are a kick in the head!

    JR
                                                                 

We had a banner week-end this past week-end which was great as my mother-
in-law was up and hadn't seen the kids for about a year.  Unfortunately,
Jessica was sick so spent the whole time sleeping, but Brad more than
made up for it with his antics.  He's just at the stage where he repeats
everything, but it all gets that toddler twist.  Examples:

Me: You're a little parrot.
Brad: I a carrot.

Me:  Say motorcycle.
Brad:  Motorcycle

Me:  Say cauliflower.
Brad:  Cauliflower

Me:  Say pteradactyl (he's got one we call Terry)
Brad:  OK.

And he's evidently finally figured out that that voice on the other end
of the phone is actually talking to him, so he's started answering.  Well,
he made a few grandmothers very happy this week-end!

Nana (Brad's great-grandmother):  I love you.
Brad:  I love you.

Well, that's all she talked about the rest of the conversation.  He couldn't
have done anything better to make her day.  So when my mom called, she
had to test the theory:

Grandmother:  Hi, Brad.
Brad: Hi Grandmother.

Grandmother: I love you.
Brad:  I love you.

Grandmother: Bye bye.
Brad: Bye bye.

And what does this little parrot say to Mom when I tuck him in and say
'I love you'. Brad looks me square in the eye and says 'bye bye'.

We pulled some Ritz crackers out of the panty but one 'tube' was left open.  We
ate a few of them but decided they were too stale to eat.  My wife tried to
explain to Samantha (2.5 years) so she said 'They are stale.' Samantha's reply
was - 'They not stale, they crackers!'

Dave

. . .  I can't resist.

> We pulled some Ritz crackers out of the panty

Ya never know what you will find in a 2.5 year old's panties.

Clay 

    We were out walking the other evening and we had the flashlights along
    with us.  We kept telling Natasha who was in her "baby doll carridge"
    (now a big 2) to shine the flashlight at certain things.  As it got a
    little dark I'd ask her to shine the light ahead.......but she kept
    shining it all around.  After a few time of asking her & showing her to
    shine the light ahead my husband pointed out that everytime I ask her
    to shine the light ahead she shines the light at her head.........boy
    was I slow........knowing how my daughter is vocab. wise I'm surprised
    she didn't turn around and say, "I am Mommy, what's your problem". 
    

age 2 1/2....she was brushing her teeth, and I reminder her to go back and
forth....which made her take the tooth brush out of her mouth and put it 
behind her back...just makes you smile!

michael

    When I took Christopher for his 2 yr. checkup this summer, the doctor
    asked him if he could stand on one foot so, he picked up one foot and
    stood it on top of the other!
    

Lately, Ben (4 yrs.) has been playing the musical scale on his miniature
Tap-a-Tune piano.  I asked him if he could play the scale backwards
(intending for him to play it from highest to lowest note, in that order).

He obviously had a different idea.  He got up, sat down _behind_ the piano, 
reached around and played the scale.

    While doing yardwork this past Sunday, Nick (4 yrs old yesterday...how
    time flys. Sigh!) was helping me do some stuff in the backyard while
    Kathy worked in the front yard. After a while, he looked over at me and
    said: "I better go see what kind of trouble Mommy's getting into now."
    and marched off to check up on her...:^)

    As I was washing Emily's (who's almost 2) hair last night, I wanted
    to teach her a new word so I said "shampoo".  She usually repeats
    new words that we tell her, but I was a bit surprised when the
    word that she said was:

    

    shampoop!

I usually close the kids' bedroom doors at night when I put them down, and 
then open them when I go to bed so that the creaking door doesn't wake them
in the middle of the night when I get up to check on them and cover them up.
Well, they've been sick all week, so with coughing and such they have been
waking up through the night.  The other night, my husband heard Jessica 
coughing and crying at about 2:00 a.m., so he went in to check on her.  He
noticed that the hurricane lamp on her nightstand had the shade turned upside
down and was on the lower shelf of the table with the rest of the lamp inside
it, but just figured she'd done it before she fell asleep and maybe I didn't
notice when I checked on her before going to bed. So he picks her up, gives
her a hug, and has this hand come out from under the bed and grab his foot!
Seems that Brad had awakened due to his cold, and decided that Jessica's
room was better, and that he could sleep under her bed.  And it was him
who did all the lamp redecorating.  I know that if I was the one that hand
had reached out and touched I would have been on the ceiling someplace.

Needless to say, I know leave his door shut all night and just hope the
creaking doesn't wake him up.

Jeff is now in the 4-year-old class at school and thinks he is *quite* the
scholar.  They're learning about the seasons this week, and yesterday he
kept pointing out *every* red leaf he saw.

On the way home, I asked, "When do the leaves change color?"

"Winter?"

"No, not winter. We have snow in the winter."

"Summertime?"

"No, it's very hot in the summer.  That's when Daddy takes you to the pool.

He thought for a second, then said, "Wednesday?" 


:-)

    While I made supper, Katina went off to her room "to make supper."
    All of a sudden, she started making this awful noise.
    
    I ran in there to see what that matter was.
    Me: Katina WHAT is going on here.
    K: Oh that's just the smoke alarm.

	;-)

    Last night Natasha (2 yrs) was playing with her Kermit & Barney.  Somehow
    during that time Barney ended up on the floor & Kermit on her small
    table..........then Kermit got bumped off the table and hit Barney on
    the floor.  Moments later as my husband & I were doing dishes and we heard 
    Natasha behind us pulling up her small chair.  She then sat Kermit in 
    the chair and she said, "Kermit, you're in a time-out for hitting Barney, 
    hitting is naughty behavior, but I love you".  WE WERE BLOWN AWAY TO SAY 
    THE LEAST.  As she's reaming Kermit she has Barney tucked under her arm.
    After a few moments she picked up Kermit and gave him a big hug and a
    bottle from her little kitchen. 
    
    Kermit use to be her best friend in the whole world until Barney came on 
    the scene.
    
    We strongly believe hitting is wrong and were beginning to think that
    Natasha was gonna hit Mommy forever.........and all the telling her
    hitting was not nice wasn't sinking in.  Go figure!  Now if we can only
    get Natasha to stop hitting when she doesn't get her way.
               

    I woke up in the middle of the night one night last week to hear
    Christopher, now 2, talking in his crib. I went in, and heard him
    saying "I tired", repeating it over and over. I told him to go to sleep
    and plunked him back down!
    

    
    My daughter Anna, 29 months, is very into telling us what she thinks
    things are: "I think that's the towel", etc. Or if I tell her something
    she respond with a pensive look and then "I think so". Anyways,
    Wednesday is trash day and we get to the sitters about the same time as
    the trash truck. So watching the trash truck is a big event. Yesterday
    Anna and Sean (28 months) were at the door watching the truck and men
    and Sean turned to us and said "Big truck". Anna looked at him and
    said, "I think it's a trash truck" with this note of superiority to
    her voice. The sitter and I just laughed. 
    
    Patty

    The other night my fiance' and I had taken Josh (4 years) to dinner
    at a restaurant.  He was acting up some and we had been on his case to 
    sit up, eat, and act like a big boy.  He sat up and was acting very
    polite for quite some time when he suddenly got this funny look on his
    face and announced very loudly, "Remember a long time ago when you used
    to let me do what I wanted?"  Everyone around us busted up and we had
    tears rolling down our cheeks.
    
    Pam

The other day I was grocery shopping.  My allmost 5 year old daughter Breanne,
asks -- "Mom, do you know someone name Polly Ester"?  

Kirsten

        My 3 1/2 year old grandson really floors me sometime. I let him
    stay with me for the weekend. Saturday afternoon I asked him where he
    would like to go. He said "Chuck and Cheese or the Zoo." I said "Well,
    I don't know where there's a Chuck and Cheese, but I'll try to find
    out after we go to the Big-Y grocery store." He said "That's where
    it is."  I've been to the Big-y and never noticed a Chuck and Cheese
    there. So, I said "I don't think I've ever seen one there". He insisted
    that it was there. 
    
        Well, I drove into the parking lot and he said "There's Chuck and
    Cheese, I love that place." I looked over at the Stores and there
    it was. I said to him "I didn't know there was one here." He said,
    "I did because I'm a smart boy.!" I said, "You certainly are.!" He
    had this big smile one his face while he was telling me how smart he
    was.
    
        Boy, kids can be so smart.
    
        Rose

    Picking nits
    
    Its "Chuck E Cheese"

        .460   That's probably right. It was my first time there. At first
    I thought it was Chunky Cheese.  Pretty neat place for kids, I'm one
    myself.   My sister has a bumper sticker (I want it, but of course 
    it probably can't be taken off without ruining and she can't remember
    where it came from) that says "I may be getting old, but I refuse to
    grow up!" That's me.
    
       Rose

re: .459

In short order, he will also know the locations of all the McDonalds; and if 
he's in unfamiliar territory, he will be able to sense them, before they will 
be seen.

Clay

    
    
    	re: .462
    
    			;-)

    My almost-3-year old is just learning about different names of 
    people in the family.  The other day he reviewed with me:  
    "Mommy, you're my Mother, right?"  I agreed.  "And Daddy is my
    Father, right?"  Again, yes.  "And I'm your precious boy, right?"
    
    At night I say to him, "Good night, my precious boy", so I guess
    he thinks that's his other "name"!
    
    Jane

    Our 4 yrd old "lady" Avanti had the following conversation yesterday
    with her Dad.
    
    Dad asked her a question.
    Avanti answered.
    Dad asked her the question again.
    Avanti did not answer.
    Dad asked her again.
    Avanti did not answer.
    
    ..... this went on about 10-15 times.
    
    Eventually,
    
    
    Avanti: "Daddy, I am NOT going to answer that question 'cause you
    	     keep asking me that question again and again!"
    
    Well, Daddy just had to keep from bursting with laughter. Daddy does
    try to "yank her chain" many times a day. She has wised up.
    
    Shaila

	At dinner the other night, I asked Ian, my 3.5 yr old, what part of
the roasted chicken he wanted, leg, wing or breast?

	He replied; "I want the face!"

	Needless to say, we had a good laugh over that one :-)

	This morning as I dropped off Emily, I told her to say "bye-bye"
	to Daddy.  Instead, she said, "uh-oh".  Again I said, "say bye-bye",
	and she put her head down and said "uh-oh".  I gave up, and brought
	her to my mother.  After a few moments, I noticed one shoe was missing.

	I went to look for it, and it was right outside the car door, in the
	spot where Emily had been saying uh-oh.

	I'm surprised she didn't say "I told you so" when I brought the shoe
	back... ;-)

	Karen

    This morning on the way to the sitter's, my son Shane, age 3, and I were 
    having a conversation about his day with my friend, Kim.  I asked him, 
    "Shane, where did you go with Kim?", his reply, "I don't know".  Again I 
    said, "Shane, tell me where you went with Kim".  Again he said, "I don't
    know".  I then said, "Shane, you know where you went with Kim, can you
    tell me?".  His final reply was, "ONE MORE TIME, I DON'T KNOW!".  I
    cracked up!
    
    Lori B.

About 8 months ago I was up early with my oldest (just turned 3 in 
september) and he saw mom's keys on the counter waht follows is our 6am 
conversation:  

Nathan: "Can I play with mom's keys?" (Keys are off limits, we like to be 
able to find them when we have to go somewhere)
Me: "No"
N: "Please, can I play with them"
M: "No"
N: "Please"
M: "No" (repeat this about 4 times)
N: "Please"
M: "What part of no don't you understand"
N: "What part of please don't YOU understand daddy"

It was all I could do to keep from rolling off the couch with laughter.  It 
is still and probably always will be my favorite kid story...  my second 
favorite (so far) is next.

This happened about 3 weeks ago.  When I'm not here at DEC I manage a band 
called Slipknot.  Are music is influenced by bands like the Grateful Dead 
and the Allman Brothers and Eric Clapton and other classic articsts.  
Nathan loves to see Slipknot and is always asking to hear tapes.  About 
three weeks ago I was feeding the kids dinner and I had a Jerry Garcia CD 
on and Nathan sais to me "Take that off, I don't want to hear Jerry Garcia 
I want to hear Slipknot, The Next Generation".  

As you may be able to tell, he also likes Star Trek:-).

Jennifer, our oldest, is in the first grade now.  Her teacher has
assigned us homework.  We read a book a night and then Jennifer has to
write the title, author and a short comment about the story.  One night
we read a shortened version of 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'.  When
we were through reading the book and it was time to comment on the story,
Jenn mentioned a couple of pretty straightforward observations about it.
As we were discussing the various alternatives, our 4 year old Emily,
who was supposedly otherwise occupied in another room, yelled out,

"You should always lock your doors when you leave the house!".

My wife and I agreed that would certainly keep little blond girls
from eating your porridge and busting up your rocking chairs while you
were out walking!  

Steve

    re:-1 Must have been watching Barney and the "the 3 little bears"
    puppet show where the last line of the song is "...lock the door".
    
    Shaila

the kids *are* big Barney fans!  

    RE:-1
    
    Can you guess how much BARNEY we watch?????
    
    Shaila

    
    Today Peter, the high wire artist (15 mos) and always bruised boy, was 
    attempting to go from the chair to his high chair - a VERY precarious move
    from the way the two chairs were arranged.
    
    I gave a strangled, "Peter - no!" and ran over to disengage him.  As he
    looked up at me like "so, Mom, what's the big deal?" 
    I said, "Peter, that's dangerous - you might fall and hurt yourself."
    
    Peter looked back thoughtfully, then patted the side of his head..
    "...Boom".
    

    Just had to put this in:
    
    My son, Timmy (age 4), asked me this morning what to do if your clothes
    catch on fire.  I told him that he would need to 
    
    		"Stop, Drop and Roll"
    
    So, he looks at me and says "I need to stop rock and roll?"
    
    Linda

    We were heading out to the car this morning when i realized I'd
    forgotten to put Johnathan's sweater in his day-care bag.  It was on
    the kitchen table just inside the door, so I knew I could dash into the
    house and get it within seconds, and since our yard is fenced, I felt
    Johnathan would be safe for that short period of time alone outside.  
    So I asked him to stay right where he was and wait for me.  
    
    Me:  "I'm just going to run in the house for a second and get your
         sweater".
    
    Johnathan:  "No, Daddy says 'No running in the house!'"
          

    This weekend my son and I were rough-housing a little when he caught me
    in the stomach unexpectedly with his arm.  I fell to the floor
    melodramatically and called for the stretcher because I was "injured."
    
    A few minutes later my husband walked in, "Brian, why are you pulling
    on Mom's leg"
    
    Brian's reply - "I'm stretching her"

    My son, Ryan, age 6 had a doctor's visit last week after a high fever
    and terrible cough.  The doctor checked him over and looked into his
    throat.  "Wow, what huge tonsils and adnoids he has."  After a bit of 
    discussion about them the doctor thought I should have him see a 
    specialist once the soreness had past.
    
    Saturday morning my dad asked Ryan how he was feeling.  He told him he
    was getting much better now, and that the doctor said, "Your asteroids
    need to come out."  I wish I was in the room.  It must have been
    priceless.
    
    -sandy
    

    Last night my phone did not stop ringing so after about 1 1/2 hours of
    talking to friends and relatives, my 3 year old son walks up to me and
    says, "Would you please take that phone off your ear and listen to
    me!".  I cracked up!
    
    Lori B.

       3 year old are funny. Last night I was talking to my daughter
    and I said "Put Tommy on the phone so I can talk to him." She
    called him (he's my grandson) and told him meme was on the phone.
    
       He says to her "Tell her hi and I love her but I'm too busy to
    talk, I'm watching Humpty Dumpty."
    
       When it was over and we were still talking he came over to the phone
    and said hi to me and told me all about Humpty Dumpty. Where do 3
    year olds come up with these things. Of course he probably heard
    his mother or someone use the phrase , but it's so funny from a
    3 year old.
    
       Rose

The other day, Elise and her father were in an office
supplies store.  As they were going around getting stuff,
Elise kept saying they should go now (we were all going
to meet at a restaurant for dinner).

Finally, he said that they had to go pay the money first,
before they could leave.  Elise thinks for a while, then
says:

"Won't they share?"


Pat

    For his third birthday recently, Johnathan got lots of toy vehicles
    (ambulance, fire engine, etc.) that flash lights and make siren noises
    when you push a button.  Ocassionally the batteries would run out and
    he learned that Mom or Dad had to put in new batteries to make them 
    work again.
    
    The other day we were driving to day-care when Johnathan saw a police
    car in front of us, just driving normally without its lights or siren
    on.  Johnathan said, "Mommy, that police car needs new batteries!"
    
    Jane
                                                                      

Anthony (4.9 years old) saw an ad for the new Ford trucks and they show the air
bags inflating.  He turned around and said (roughly) "Air bags!  So you can go
to sleep!"

If you remember, he and I made a trip from GA to MS and back and we made sure to
bring a pillow for him to use when sleeping in the truck.

Dave

    My son Matthew (just turned 3) was sick this past week and had
    a fever.  I was taking his temperature with a digital thermometer
    when we had the following coversation:
    
    Me:  When it's done, it'll beep.
    Matthew:  And then you will eat me?
    Me: What?
    Matthew: Like the microwave.
    
    cracked me up!!   
    

    This morning we were sitting in the car waiting for the day care
    provider when a huge dog (I think it was a great dane) walked by.  My
    three year old son, who's not afraid of anything, asked if he could get
    out to pat him.  I agreed and got out then let him out.  He promptly
    walked over to the dog, put his hand on the dogs back then bent over
    and looked underneath the dog.  He then said, "Yup, he's a boy, he's
    got a penis".  I nearly died, I laughed so hard!
    
    Lori B.

    David (almost 4) got his first airplane ride...we went to Florida. I
    brought his booster seat so he could see a little better out of the
    window, so we were able to board first.  We were seated, settled, and
    he was staring out the window in anxious anticipation of flying. After
    15 minutes of other passengers sitting in the wrong seats, moving
    about, trying to stuff huge suitcases into overhead compartments, he
    finally YELLED (you know that child-like voice that can be heard across
    the globe?):
    "Will everybody stop goofing around and sit down so we can get this
    show on the road!"
    There is no place to hide in an airplane seat...I know, I tried to find
    someplace to crawl...
    
    He also gave the captain a promotion. As we were boarding, the captain
    was greeting everybody. David said :
    "Mom, look! A general!!!"  
    
    Sarah

    Thanks Sarah - nearly choked on my dinner reading that!
    Kids!
    (actually, Mom and Dad tell me that on my first plane trip
    at 5 years of age I was heard very loudly and clearly to say:
    "Daddy, are we going to crash?"
    Pop said the silence waiting for his response was deafening......
    
    8-) 8-)
    
    Monica

    A couple of weeks ago my son Matt and I were disussing the implications
    of NOT having his mole removed, which included the possiblity of
    cancer.  Mid way through my answer as to why he MUST have the mole
    removed Matt said: "Daddy! How do you spell pizza?"
    
    Hmmmm. Do we have a communications problem here?
    
    Jeff

    Christoper, 2 1/4, was putting pennies into a dog bank yesterday. When
    he was done, he said he wanted to go to the money store and buy 2
    dollars!
    

    My grandson Andrew, almost 4, was taught how to dial 911 by his mother.
    
    When I called last week, she asked him to get on the phone and tell
    me what he had learned.
    
    "I learned how to dial 911 on the phone."  Mommy in the background told
    him to say when he was supposed to do this.  He replied, "I supposed to
    dial 911 when my Mommy and Daddy die."  
    
    Mommy frantically corrected him, but I almost choked. 
    
    Amazing what you can tell a child, and what they end up hearing.
    
    Lee

       Kids are so funny.
    
       My daughter and I went to BJ's Sunday and on the way out I asked my
    3 1/2 year old grandson if he would like something at the refreshment
    stand on the way out. He said "Yes."  We got there and he just followed
    the line. While we were in line I kept asking him if he wanted pizza,
    hot dog, soda. He said no to everything. We got to the cash register
    and I said "Tommy , what do you want?"  He said "I want some money,
    lady, how about a hundred bucks!"
    
       I couldn't stop laughing! He was serious he didn't want anything to
    eat. 
    
         Rose
    
    

     Our three year old daughter loves to play hide and seek with her
     Daddy.  So the other night I was resting in another roon and heard
     Kristine saying:  "Daddy I don't know where to hide now, so you tell
     me where I can hide and then come to find me".  I thought that her
     ingenuity was so cute.

        --Cida

  Samantha's (2.5) sitting here on our bed (I'm at home dialed in just 
  finishing up some work) and she gave the kitties some of their moist cat
  food.  She saying 'gave titties pood'.  I tried to get her to say
  'Kitties' so I was making the K sound and she was doing pretty good at
  repeating it, but still said 'titties' when prompted.  This went on for 5
  or 6 rounds when she finally said "No, Tigger!", which of course is the
  name of the cat in question.....
  
  Dave

    When doing a coin toss, most people call "heads" or "tails".
    My almost 5 year old son says "heads" or "buildings"!
    We usually use pennies  :-)
    
    				Donna

    We recently added another pet to our family - a Cairn Terrier.  My son
    (4) decided her name was going to be "Betty".  Cute name for her, but
    we have no idea where he came up with it.  My husband decided to find
    out.  The conversation went like this :
    
    Dad   : Where did you get the name "Betty"?
    David : From out of my head!
    Dad   : Where did you hear the name "Betty"?
    David : From my ears!
    Dad   : Do you know anyone named "Betty"?
    David : Yeah. The dog.
    
    Sarah : )
    

Last night at bedtime, Steven (4) and I got into a conversation
about his independance.  This evolved into a talk about going off
to kindergarten (w/out Mom and Dad) and the how someday he might 
want to play school sports like some of his cousins (t-ball, baseball, 
soccer, hockey, football) etc..

His dad is a sports fanatic, so the conversation ended by naming
off the local pro sports teams...here's how the conversation went:

Me:  	Boston...
Steven: Bruins play hockey

Me:	This team isn't playing this time of year. Boston...
Steven: Red Sox play baseball

Me: 	This team plays football. New England...
Steven: TELEPHONE!

Well, you've got to admit the New England Telephone team might
have a better shot at winning a game than the Patriots!

		Linda

    Ok, so maybe Sarah (19 mos) doesn't completely understand what she is
    saying but it still makes me feel great anyway.
    
    We were playing the What does an X say game and...
    
    Me:  Sarah, what does a pig say?
    Sarah:  oink oink
    
    Me:  What does a cow say?
    Sarah:  moo moo
    
    Me: (trying to see what she'd say)  What does a mommy say?
    Sarah:  I love you.
    
    Me:  What does a daddy say?
    Sarah:  I love you, too.
    
    Susan

    That reminds me of when Paige learned to sing Old McDonald.  She was
    also into saying NO! around that time.  (Still is, come to think of
    it...)
    
    We were in the car and she was singing rounds of Old McDonald using a
    pig, cow, horse, etc.  She seemed to have run out of animals at one
    point, until suddenly she started to sing, "...and on his farm he had a
    Paige, E-I-E-I-O.  With a 'no, no,' here and a 'no, no' there..."
    
    I like a kid who can laugh at herself!
    
    -Tracy
    

    
    When Sophie LEarned to sing Twinkle, Twinkle at around 2 years old, her
    sphere of experience was limited.. of course.
    
    So whatdo you do with lyrics that don't make sense?.... You chenge
    them!
    
    Up above the world so high
    Like a dinosaur way high......
    
    Jamd

I had a pretty funny night with my nephews last night...

Neil (3) had built a snowplow out of Legos.  He was carrying it around the
house and kept dropping it, breaking it, and asking me to put it back together
for him.  After the third time, I said "You need to try harder not to let
this fall."  His reply: "I don't make it fall, *gravity* makes it fall!".


Brian (6) decided to fix himself a *healthy* snack before bed by using 
something from all of the food groups.  Here's what he made for himself
and his rationalizations for its healthiness:


	peanut butter (from the meat & protien group)


			rolled in
	graham cracker crumbs (from the bread group)

	               mixed in with
	raspberry (from the fruit & veggie group)
	swirl ice cream (from the milk group)!


It was a nice idea, but I suspect that a nutritionist might disagree with
the execution!

                                             Tracy

	My nephew, Michael, who is 2 and 1/2 is learning Rudulph The Red
	Nosed Reindeer song, he proudly started to sing it for everyone
	after dinner on Thanksgiving,

	Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
	Had a very shiny nose
 	And if you ever saw it
 	You would even say it BLOWS

	We all just burst into laughter!!!!

	Karen T. :)

I was talking to my girlfriends son on the phone the other night. He 
just started going to catholic school and he's learning the Lords 
Prayer.

I can only remember the frist two lines of his version:
		Our Father who's LOCKED in heaven,
		HAL will be his name....

I thought it was hysterical! I can only imagine what his little mind 
must be imagining!!!!

    That reminds me of my bother (many years ago).  He wanted to know who
    Leo Faithful was, since there were singing a song about him.  They were
    leaning the song "O come a yee faithful"
    

....for which it stands, one nation indivisible.....became

for Richard stands, one naked individual......


can't remember where I heard it though

michael

    my five year old ... the Lord's Prayer:
    
    "give us this day our jelly bread".....
    
    

    Last night channel 7 had a program on all the holiday/toy christmas ads
    from many generations. (It was really cute)   
    
    We haven't yet explained to Natasha what happens at Christmas.
    She only knows Daddy brought a package in the house that she
    can have on Christmas morning.  I was saving this discussion for this
    weekend when we take out the nativity set & other x-mas decorations.
    
    Anyway, my husband and I were sitting on the couch and Natasha 
    (now a big 2 years, 3 months yesterday) was in her chair having some 
    ice cream..............not saying a word for about 15 minutes.....after
    all she was induldging in Choco. Chip Ice Cream!  All of a sudden we
    here this sweet little person speak out very loudly (in her covered in
    ice cream face):
    
       I wanna ge a Chwistsmas present,  Barney have one too.
    
    (Barney always wants everything Natasha wants)
    
    
    
    ...............we cracked up.
    
    I had no clue she had even lifted her head from the ice cream dish.
                    

Samantha (2.5) has learned what the traffic lights mean - Green is go, Red 
is stop and Yellow is GO SLOWLY.  Yes, she always YELLS it out.  So last 
night she and I went to the grocery store and she noticed the yellow signs 
on the side of the road (indicating intersections, turns, etc) and for each 
one she made the connection - 'Yellow sign, GO SLOWLY!'  Pretty good.

Dave

In Massachusetts, yellow means speed up.  There are differences of opinion
as to what red means.

    
    Our 3 year old yells at us for going through a yellow light, even if
    it was impossible to stop for it, like it changes to yellow just as
    you pull under it. The ones that confuse him are: blinking lights and
    intersections with turn only lanes, one light is red the other is
    green, he seems to follow a better safe than sorry stance, if either
    is red, he tells us we should've stopped
    
    
    

Samantha also gets a little confused because after she sees a yellow sign, 
she can't find a green one to tell us to Go.....  I've tried explaining the 
'default' condition of no signs means 'green', but maybe she's a little 
young to grasp that yet :-)

Right turn on red is also conversation starter.

Dave

The other day, I overheard Michelle (age 3.5) giving her dad a piece of her 
mind as he sat reading the morning paper and drinking his coffee:

Michelle:  "Daddy, how can you just SIT there while I have so much to do!?
            I have to PLAY,
            I have to read my BOOKS,
            I have to watch TV,
            I have to COLOR...

            I can't do all this by MYSELF!!!!!!!!"


Now - I can't imagine where she got that from ;-)
	    

    My son, Justin is almost 5.  He's been practicing Christmas carols for
    his daycare's open house next week...We Three Kings is one of the songs
    they'll be doing:
    
    		"We three kings of Oreo tar"
    
    It's so hard not to crack up when they're so proud of themselves!
    
    				Donna

    Christopher, now 2 1/3, is very independent. Last night he was
    pretending to bake a cake and asked me if he could put the pan in the
    refrigerator. When I said no, he looked at me and said:
    
    
	"I'll give you money".
    

    The other day I said to my 3-year-old, 
    
      "I just have to stop at the store and pick up some milk."
    
    He looked puzzled for a moment and then asked,
    
      "Did you drop some milk?"
    
    Jane

Brian (6) was trying to be creative again at snack time.  He started telling
his dad (Luke) about a snack he had learned about in school and wanted to make.
After hearing the ingredients, Luke didn't think it sounded quite right, so he
told Brian that knowing the ingredients wasn't enough -- he'd have to know how 
much of each to use and what order to do things in.  He asked him, "Don't you 
have a written recipe for it?"

Brian ran up to his room, and Luke assumed he was looking for the recipe from
school.  Instead, Brian had decided to type up his own recipe instead.  Here
it is (good luck!) :


				PENATBADR BOLLS

	pot gramcracrs into a pan makshor the hole pan is cafrd
	pot penatbadr on the gramcracrs.cut up apples.Pot on penatbadr
	pot rasins and graps on penatbadr. And wat tile tomorow.	


The "wait 'til tomorrow" is so that the whole thing has a chance to 
harden up!

						Tracy

    	Apparently this belongs in the 
    	
    	"do unto others as you have seen done to you" category.

    	The other day I had both kids alone all day and it seemed that
    there was just one dirty diaper after another. I finally had both kids
    in clean pants, went off to wash my hands, started a load of laundry
    and came down to the toy room only to smell "that" smell again.

    "Someone in this room has stinky-pants", I said in my most accusing
    voice.

    	Spencer (2) came up behind me, pulled back my sweatpants, looked
    down inside and said "nooooooooooo".

    	It was nice to know that after that kind of a day *I* was not the
    one with stinky-pants.

    				Wendy
    	

    Last night I put Natasha (2) down for the night and I forgot to leave
    the closet door (which has a light in it) open a bit.  After 5 minutes
    alone she starts screaming and when I asked her what was the matter she
    said, "Mommy, I can't see my face, turn the light on".  I told her if
    she closes her eyes she won't need the light on, even though I opened
    the closet door for her.  She replies, "I can't sleep if I can't see my
    face".             This is a new one for me.   

    Ryan (5) and Christopher (2 1/2) share a bedroom, and often talk/battle
    for a few minutes before settling down to sleep. The other night I
    heard them bantering back and forth, and then Christopher called to me.
    When I went in, he told me that Ryan had called him a "copy cat" so, he
    said, 
    
    
    	"Me call Ryan "dog cat"".
    
    

	I rented the movie "Fire in the Sky" over the weekend.  It is about
	a man who gets abducted by aliens (based on a true story). I was 	
	watching the movie with my children.  When the spacecraft was on 
	the t.v. screen, Ariel (2.5 yrs) asked me "What is that, Mommy?"
	I replied "A  U.F.O.".  She turned to me and said "I'm not a FO".

	I just hugged her and said "Your right, you are not a FO, and that
	is a spacecraft".....I laughed whenever I saw the spacecraft.


	Patty

    Natasha (2) has been watching the Christmas specials (WE HAVE 'EM ALL on
    TAPE) over & over.  The other night she looked around the room and
    looked at me, then she said with her arm outstretch to her side, 
    "where's our chimmeny, all gone".
    
    We later explained to her that our christmas wreath on our back door
    which has a present on it has a special key for Santa to get in.  She
    now continually goes to the back door and says, "Santas key is up
    there, he gonna bring me presents & Daddy a ball" (Daddy didn't even
    know he wanted a ball).  I guess I (the Mommy) wasn't on Santa's list
    this year (ha, ha, ha)......guess I'll have to treat myself to
    something good. :-)
    
    Wishing you all a very safe & happy holiday season!!!!!!!!!!

    Maybe this should go into the "Children at church" note:
    
    I was at religious services the other day with Ilona.  We were about a
    dozen people in someone's home - very informal.  About 15 minutes into
    the service we stood for a prayer.  Ilona stood for a moment, then
    collapsed on the floor, loudly announcing, "I CAN'T STAND. . . it
    anymore."
    
    People mumbled, "Yeah - I can relate to that."
    
    :-)

    We're sitting at supper last night and Christopher (2 1/2) tells me
    that he did timeout at the sitter's yesterday. I asked him what he did
    that put him in timeout and he said "don't know that part", thought
    about it for a few minutes and then said "I tell you that tomorrow"!!
    
    

    Santa brought Natasha (28 months) a little peoples garage that Mommy
    wasn't to happy with when it was put together (the pieces were cheaply
    made and one piece broke after five minutes of playing with it).  
    So this past Monday night I told Natasha that Mommy had to go out to
    Santas workshop to get a new garage that wouldn't break so easily.  She
    kissed me good-bye and was all excited that I was going to see Santa.
    When I came home I had a Walmart bag which had her new playschool
    garage in it.  Natasha was in the other room when I arrived home, so I 
    called to her and told her that I just got back from Santas workshop
    and he gave me a new garage (the things we say!) = she came into the
    room and grabbed the bag from my hand and looked at the bag then up 
    at me and said, "Mommy, you went to Nollnart (her version of Walmart)", 
    I said, "I went to Santas shop".  Then she looks in the bag them up 
    at me again and says, "Santas not at Nollnart". 
     {We had gone to Walmart a week ago when we had planned to see Santa 
      at the mall and when we got to Walmart she asked where Santa was and
      I told her that Santa was not at Walmart.  I guess there's no fooling 
      this kid.}

    OH NO... 
    
      My son had his hair cut today. He is two. Well the sitter
    called me at work upset.   He sprayed his head with room
    deoderizer. No harm done. I guess he might of figured he 
    needed a little hair spray to keep his new do in place....;'(
    
    He will get the best of me yet.

    When Charlotte was about one, my mother brought her a book
    back from Germany with all the farm animals. She'd "read" it to
    her by sounding out all the animal sounds. However, since horses
    and cows were on the same page (and heck, don't they look alike?)
    Charlotte would always confuse them.
    
    This Christmas my in-laws bought a huge spring horse for her and 
    the morning after we had set it up, Charlotte comes down the stairs,
    points to it and says "Moo".
    
    We've tried to correct her on numerous occasions, but I get the feeling
    that she's NAMED the horse Moo. Well, now we're calling it that too.
    
    Monica

    
    	Emily has partially learned the song "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"
    	(or Winkle Winkle Wickie R if you speak Emily-speak!)
    
    	Last week I commented to my husband how much the tune sounds like
    	the alphabet song.  
    
    	Well,  I guess Emily noticed, too, because this morning she sang
        the first two lines of Twinkle, Twinkle, paused a moment (she
    	has a bit of trouble with the next line), and sang,
    
    	"Now I said my ABC's, Tell me what you think of me"
    
    	(She even vigorously applauded her new version!)
    
    	;-)
    

>    	Last week I commented to my husband how much the tune sounds like
>    	the alphabet song.  

    There is a third song sharing the same tune....has she found that one yet?

    I never noticed it 'till I had kids!
    bob

    On Christmas Eve, I asked Ryan (5 1/2) and Christopher (2 1/2) to help
    me put the baby Jesus in the manger of our creche. We did, and then 
    Christopher, butt naked, began dancing around the room singing "baby
    Jesus, baby Jesus....". When he stopped, he looked at me and Ryan and
    told us very seriously that baby Jesus' full name is "Baby Jesus
    Michael"!   I have no idea where that came from!
    

	Re: .528 

	Baa, Baa Black Sheep shares the tune with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.


Tracey 

    David (4) received Candy Land for Christmas.  Last night he was cruising
    around the house, looking for something quiet to do after a hard day
    sledding, and said :
    
    "Hey Mom?  How about an HOUR of Candy Land?"
    
    An entire hour? Not likely...
    
    Sarah

Re: .530:

>	Baa, Baa Black Sheep shares the tune with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

No it doesn't.  

"Baa baa black sheep have you any wool"
 C   C   G     G     A    B   C A G
 c   c   c     c     q    q   q q m   (c=crotchet/quarter note)
                                      (q=quaver/eighth note)
                                      (m=minim/half note)
"Twinkle twinkle little star"
 C   C   G   G   A   A  G
 c   c   c   c   c   c  m          

The first five notes (and first four time values) are the same, but
not the remainder.  (This is from working it out, so e.g. Twinkle may 
have a different time signature.)

>>	Baa, Baa Black Sheep shares the tune with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
>
>No it doesn't.  

    It does when I sing it!
    bob

    This one is too funny to not put in here.  Last night I picked up Kayla
    (2 yrs old) at day care.  She said she wanted a "Happy Meal".  I said
    no...maybe this weekend we can get you one.  Anyhow, when we got home I
    pressed the answering machine and the message came on and Kayla put her
    face up to the speaker and said "I would like a Happy Meal with "Fen
    Fies".  I couldn't believe it....She was acting like we were at the
    drive-up speaker.   I'm still laughing!
    

      Had a great moment today,I was flicking thru the tv channels when
    I came across the European Figure skating championship.Well Rebecca
    (19months) seen this and drop everything.She turned her head so her
    chin was on her shoulder threw back her arm and started spinning round
    and running round the room,She then stopped to see what they were
    going.Seeing that they were jumping She tries the same.It's just so
    funny to see her jumping,LOADS of effort but she doesn't get that high
    off the floor.
    
      SCott
    
    

    Tonight Gina, who is 3-1/2, asked for one more Barney episode after
    dinner.  I firmly told her no, that it ws bath time and picked her up
    to take her upstairs.  She started to cry and wail... "Barney, Barney! 
    Where are you, my Barney?"
    
    I guess she thought he was going to rescue her from her mean, rotten
    Mommy.
    
    judy

My 6 year old daughter is writing "books" in first grade.  They write a certain
number of pages and the teacher puts them on the word processor and leaves
spaces for illustration.  My daughter loves our pet iguana and her first book
this year was "Iguana"  she is now writing "Iguana II - The Sequel"!!

    Ilona's latest, when she is angry with me, "I AM MOVING TO A FOREIGN
    COUNTRY!"
    
    (But when we read Runaway_Bunny, and I question her, she clearly has no
    intention of running away.  Ever the drama queen, my child!)
    
    This is the child who  at 2 1/2 handled her anger by running to her
    room, slamming the door, throwing herself on her bed, and weeping
    noisily.  
    
    Laura

    My wife is cleaning the goldfish tank, and has the half dozen or so
    fish, in a bucket. Andrew, 5 is in charge of looking after them, and
    david 2 is watching. All of a sudden Andrew starts screaming. My wife
    runs in and andrew is pointing at David. Poking out from between his
    lips is the tail of a goldfish. My wife, quickly inserts he finger into
    his mouth and gets the fish out. Surprisingly it survived...
    
    Can I rent this kid out to a fraternity or something??? 
    
    q

    Last night we were discussing the death of Telli Savalas(sp?).
    Tobias (almost 8) heard us and asked who he was.  We told him
    that he was the actor who played Kojak, the guy who always had
    the sucker in his mouth.
    
    In a perfectly serious tone Tobias asked "How did he die? Did
    he choke on the sucker?"
    
    

re .538

One of Samantha's (2.8) favorite sayings is 'You leave me alone!' if we try 
to get her to do something she doesn't want to do.  Last night we were 
cleaning out the pantry and found some bags of halloween candy (no 
comments... :-))

Samantha sees the bag, grabs it and starts walking away from us and says 
"You leave me alone!"  No prompts or anything!!

Dave

    For the past 11 years I have been suffering with the "Yeah, it's
    snowing, hope we have a snow day" syndrome from my daughter, Sarah. 
    WELL:  Sarah is now a senior in highschool.... and when it starts to
    snow she gets all depressed and starts complaining about how it will
    make graduation come a lot later in the year.

    Same here, up until a few weeks ago.  My 12 year old son would think the
    school was wrong on not cancelling when the surrounding towns cancelled
    for a snow day.  That was until my brother invited him for a week trip 
    to the Ozarks at the end of June.  Now he keeps an eye on the weather
    and counts how many "snow days" are left before it runs into his
    vacation.       

    Well, I had to share this with all of you...I'm still laughing.  This
    morning we were getting ready to leave for the daycare.  I said to my 3
    year old (Evan), "where is your hat...it's really cold out!"  He looked
    at me with his big blues eyes and said, "it's in the hat department,
    Mom!"  Well, I fell down on the dining room floor laughing.  And he
    couldn't understand what was so funny.
    
    

    Yesterday, Nick asked me to help him set up a train layout with his
    BRIO's. I happened to be reading an article in the newspaper, so I
    replied that I'd help him as soon as I was finished.
    
    He began setting up the trains himself, but after 1 or 2 minutes, he
    came over to me.
    	"Dad, you said you'd help me!"
    	"Nick, I'm on the last few paragraphs. I'll be done in a
     	 minute..."
    	Pause..."Dad, do you remember the Cinderella movie?"
    	"Yes I do, Nick."
    	"Remember she had wicked stepsisiters, who made her do *all* 
    	 the work?"
    	"Yup, I remember..."
    	"Well...do you want to be like them?"
    
    Game, set, match! Maybe I'll get to finish the article tonight...:^)

    Christopher, 2 1/2, was driving around the kitchen yesterday in his
    cozy coupe, talking to himself, saying that he wasn't going to school
    because there was no school today. So I said "You can go to work then,
    since there's no school".
    
    And he quickly turned around and said "I not go to work. I HATE work!"
    

Collin, 2 1/2 came out of his room after his nap on Saturday, looking very
groggy... He went to the front door, opened it, and said "Where's Lauren
with the cake?" (Lauren is his 6 yr old cousin who lives in the area). I got up
and asked him "What?" and he said "When I was sleeping, I saw Lauren with a
cake."  Before his nap, I mentioned that we'd be seeing this cousin the next
day for dinner so I guess he was dreaming about it. When we did get to my
brother's house, the table was set and each plate had a pink cupcake on it
(in a Valentine's Day theme, I was told)!  Maybe he's psychic? ;-)

Very funny to have watched his confused look when he was looking for that
cake!  This was almost as funny as the time he told us he had a dream about
the tow truck that came to get the baby out of mommy's tummy... He was right
about that one, too, by the way (2nd child labor was 8 hrs longer than the
first, and she was a pound lighter - go figure).

-Cori

	The other day, Emily was busily playing with the buckle to
	her high chair while I worked in the kitchen.  She started
	to ramble to herself, so I listened in on the conversation.

	It went something like "no hit Daddy, (mumble) kick Mommy, (mumble)
	timeout ?, be careful ..."

	I guess she was memorizing the "house rules" ... I'm glad
	no one was listening in (you'd think we never have any *fun* !!)

	Karen

    Maybe this belongs under I have the funniest looking kid 8^)
    
    This morning daddy decided to get Sarah (21 mos) dressed.  What a
    fashion statement NOT.  She was dressed in a pair of pale blue jeans
    with large pastels flowers and bright red flowered shirt, her socks
    were navy blue with red and yellow fire engines.  It might not sound
    too bad but it was all I could do to not roll on the floor laughing.
    
    Daddy promised to tell daycare that I didn't dress her 8^)
    
    Meanwhile, Sarah's favorite book lately is Curious George.  It is not
    an uncommon sight in our house to see her walking around scratching
    under her arms and saying "ee ee ee".
    
    Susan

    Re: 549
    
    The outfit sounds perfect to me! Whats wrong?
    
    JR
    
    A Dad who *never* gets to pick/out help his son dress - by order of my
    wife.

    Yeah, the clothes cover the relevant bits, sounds OK :-)
    
    Andy (a dad who dresses his son every working day, and gets similar
    reactions of disbelief from his wife)

I can relate too - sometimes I wonder when my wife will start laying out *my* 
clothes in the morning....:-)

Dave

yesterday my wife was shopping with our second daughter, Emily.  they 
started looking at Valentine's Day cards.  Emily picked one out and asked
her mom if this one was ok.  My wife said no, that was one for a boy friend.
Emily replied, "Then why don't you buy it for Dad?  He's one of your boy
friends!"  WOT!  Emily just turned 5 and probably thinks my wife's father
and brothers are boyfriends because, after all, they are boys!

At least that's what my wife *wants* me to believe!  :-)

    The last reply reminds me of something that my son Christopher (2 1/2)
    said yesterday. He was telling our neighbor that his grandmother has
    a piano similar to our neighbor's, and said "my sister named Granny has
    a piano too".
    
    He used to call everyone friends; now they're all related to us!
    
    

    Ryan (5) and Christopher (2 1/2) recently went to see BEETHOVEN 2.
    The've come up with their own name for the movie now - 
    
    		BEETHOVEN GETS BABIES.
    
    

    
    	Never have your child learn about death from the movie Bambi.
    
    	Allison (age 3) asked me where my grandmother was.  Without 
    thinking, I told Allison she was dead.
    
    	After a long pause, Allison asked, "Did someone shoot her?"
    
    A couple of days later, Allison was asking her father about death. dies. Usually
    after they lived a long life and when they are very, very old.
    Allison says, "Dad, you're kidding me, there are lots of people alive."
    

    New location of Puff the Magic Dragon, as sung by my 4 year old David:
    
    " ... and frolicked in the autumn mist, in a land called HUNGARY"
    
    : )
    Sarah

  The other night Anthony (5) was in bed, but Samantha (almost 3) was being
  a litle difficult...  Finally Samantha stayed in her bed for more than 30
  seconds and Anthony piped up as I was leaving their room, "Dad, I don't
  like her attitude." (!)
  
  Dave (day 6 of the Chicken 'Pops' for Anthony)

My nephew, Neil (3.6), went skiing for the first time two weeks ago and 
fell and broke his leg.  :-(   His dad, Luke, is a little worried that this 
accident will have turned Neil off to skiing altogether, so he was poking
around for some information the other day.

Luke said to Neil, "Do you think we'll go skiing together again someday?".
Neil, who doesn't quite have a grasp of the hypothetical, looked at
Luke like he was crazy and said, "Dad, I have a *cast* on my leg!".

                                            Tracy

    This weekend we went to visit a friend who has several puppies.  After
    a while I realized that my 18 month old daughter was very quietly
    playing (too quietly) in another room.  I walked in to see her holding
    a puppy over the toilet, saying "Baa dawg poop potty PU".  Apparently
    the puppy had an accident and she thought he must use the potty.

    My husband just called to say that when he went to drop Sarah (21 mos)
    off at daycare he brought Max (our 6 yr old "couch potato" lab) with
    them.
    
    Michael brought Sarah into the house and Max joined them.  Sarah was so
    excited about showing Max off to the others she didn't even want to
    take her coat off.  When Michael started to leave Sarah started crying. 
    Thinking that the tears were because he was leaving (foolish daddy)
    Michael bent down, gave her another hug and told her that she was going
    to have lots of fun with the others and he'd see her tonight, etc.  She
    then put him in his place by saying "No, daddy, want Max to stay. 
    Daddy go, Max stay."
    
    Susan

    Yesterday we stopped at the library on the way home to get some books,
    and happened to meet a man with a young dog that is training to be a
    helping dog for visually/living impaired individuals. We stopped to
    chat with him, and both of my sons talked about our big dog at home,
    who is 12. The man explained that the helping dog can come into the
    library because he is assisting the person he's with. Ryan, 5 1/2, said
    "Yes, and if our dog came into the library, he'd find a corner and lie
    down."
    
    Christopher, 2 1/2, was a bit fearful that the helping dog would lick
    his face. The man explained that the dog does not bite and his licks
    are his way of kissing.  Christopher said "Dog bites and licks", to
    which the man replied "No, he doesn't bite".  And Chris responded, "He
    does bite - he bites his dog food"!.
    
    

    
    We have a 30-gallon fish tank that has been plantless for a few weeks.
    The old plants needed to be replaced, and when I moved the tank, I
    wanted to get new ones, so we've been without for a while now. 
    Jonathan (5 mos old) **LOVES** watching the fish.  Just saying "Want to
    see the fishies?" will bring a smile and his head spinning to find
    them, and is guaranteed to stop ANY crying spell!With no plants in the
    tank, they're REAL easy to watch.
    
    Well, last night we finally got some plants.  Jonathan was sitting in
    his seat, watching the fishies, when I started adding the plants to the
    tank.  Since we have a lot of little fish and a few BIG fish, there are
    kind of a lot of plants to give the little fish some refuge.  Well,
    with each plant that I added to the tank, Jonathan started making
    noises - kind of yelling.  Each plant obstructed his view of the fish. 
    By the time I was about half done, he was SCREAMING yelling - NOT
    crying!  I took the plants out and he was happy again.  Put  them back
    in and he started his yelling again.  It was the funniest thing!! 
    
    So now I'm stuck between a hollering baby and being able to offer the
    little fish protection.  We ended up adding the plants and I got some
    medium-sized fish this afternoon.  We'll see how THAT goes over
    tonight.
    
    As an aside .... for anyone with a little kid/baby, a fish tank is by
    far the best diversion we've found yet.  It's completely captivating
    and always different, soothing and pretty simple to maintain.  I know I
    just like to watch them sometimes when I'm stressed out .... and wonder
    how I might be able to hide in that little castle in the corner, and
    only come out to eat (-:
    

    I'm driving home from daycare last night with my 2 sons, when
    Christopher (2 1/2) says "Mom, I be a boy named Chris Scott. When I get
    [to be] a girl, I get a pony tail?"
    
    To which Ryan (5 1/2) quickly replied "Chris, you're never gonna get to
    be a girl, but you can have a ponytail anyway!"
    

One day, while sitting on the potty, Elise was
lecturing me on how she lives in a house, Daddy
lives in a house, Sarah lives in a house, JP
(the dog) lives in a house, Crabber (the cat)
lives in a house, etc....

Then she pooped. And said, "My poop lives in a house."

Me:  "Your poop lives in a house?"

E:  Like a lightbulb going on, "*I* am my poop's house."

Then, she goes on:

"And you are your poop's house, and Daddy is his poop's 
house, and Sarah is her poop's house, and JP....."

Betcha didn't know that.....

Pat

    re:  poop houses
    
    Now *that's* the kind of conversation we have around our house!!!
    
    
    beth

  Of course, there was the day a few weeks ago that Samantha wanted to put
  her poops back....! :-)
  
  Actually, while Samantha and I were in the car the other day, she was
  looking out the window and counting stuff.  She then made the
  announcement that she needed more fingers and thumbs and hands so she
  could count higher.
  
  Dave

    Due to the bad weather yesterday, Sarah (22 mos) and I stayed home.
    
    I put her down for her nap and went downstairs to do my thing.  I could
    hear her upstairs playing rather than sleeping and an hour later she
    started knocking on her door to come out.
    
    I took a look at her and couldn't figure out at first why she looked so
    strange and then I when I saw the empty vaseline container on her bed I
    knew what it was - she glistened.  From head to toe she had rubbed
    vaseline into her and onto her bed and furniture.  Somehow she had
    managed to get the vaseline container on top of her changing table.
    
    Three baths later her hair still looks greasy but boy her skin is sooo
    soft.
    
    Susan

    Susan,
    
    Try putting the shampoo on her dry hair first.  It does a better job of
    breaking up the oils in the vaseline.  I learned this from having to
    get blue oil paint out of Lolita and her cousins hair when they were 2
    and 4.  Use the vaseline or other oil to break up the paint, and then
    but the shampoo on dry to loosen up the oil, then wash.
    
    Meg

    Meg,
    
    Thanks for the hint.  I'll try it tonight.
    
    Susan