Kids Are Funny II

March 24, 2008 at 7:52 pm (Funny, Kids)

Here is the post you have all been waiting for.  I like to delude myself into thinking that people are interested in my emotional ramblings and artistic endeavors, but I really know that everyone is just waiting for some more funny kid quotes.  :-)

From a 3 yr. old while saying goodbye to me:

 3 yr. old: “I like your eyeball.”

Me: “Thanks.”

3 yr. old: “I want to eat it.” 

Ummmm.  OK.

Conversation with a 3 yr. old:

3 yr. old:  “Do you like to be alone?”

Me: “Sometimes.  Do you like to be alone?”

3 yr. old: “Ummm, only if there is someone with me.”

Conversation with a 3 yr. old:

Me: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

3 yr. old: “A fireman.”

Me: “Oh – are you going to fight fires and stuff?”

3 yr. old, upon getting a terrified look up on his face, “Nooooo.  I’m going to be a pretend fireman.”

Noble profession, that.

Conversation with a 5 yr. old while he is trying to teach me how to hold a golf club:

5 yr. old: “You have to hold it like this because you get more leverage.”

Me: “OK.”

5 yr. old: “Leverage is something that makes you stronger than you really are.  But I don’t really know how it works.”

Conversation with a 5 yr. old:

Me: “What is your favorite thing to do?”

5 yr. old: “Pet kitties.”  ********short pause******** “No, wait…shoot guns.” 

Hmmm…pet kitties…shoot guns.  MPD anyone?  :-)

2 Comments

Boys…

September 4, 2007 at 3:59 pm (Funny, Kids)

Today, I had two 3 yr. old boys.  I babysit these two pretty regularly…they’re not twins.  It’s a little man I keep and his buddy from down the street.  Now that the sister is back in school, the mom feels guilty about leaving him unless he has a kid to play with, so she gets the other little guy to come over for a play-date while I’m there. 

Well, the kid I keep regularly is pretty funny, and his friend from down the street is hysterical.  That one made it onto my “Kids Are Funny” post 3 times.  The other day, they were “working” on stuff in the house with their little kid toys and play tool belts on.  This little guy comes out of the bathroom with this:

“Hey, Connie!” 

Me: “Yes?”

“What’s a potty worker called?”

Me: “A plumber.”

“OK, well, we’re being plumbers.” 

Yay for plumbers!  Well, they continued working on other things in the house, and everything was either cracked or leaking, but mostly both.  They’re working dialogue is great.  I wish you could hear it.  You would hear things like, “We’re really going to have to get somebody in here to look at that,” and “Uh-oh, do you see that water going everywhere?”  Priceless.

You would also hear the little man from down the street telling me about his parents going to “San Fra-Crisco” and how he was going to have a “Space Shovel” birthday party.

But this is the best.  I don’t sit and stare at them the whole time I’m there, you know.  I let them play in the bedroom by themselves some, and I have the monitor on so I can still hear everything they say.  Today, they started singing…it was something pretty much unintelligible, but somehow still hilarious, about rainbows and lumberjacks.   Then I hear one of them say, “I’m going to get Connie,” and this was quickly done.  They emerged to tell me they were going to put on a “movie,” and I was needed for the audience.  The “movie” turned out to be more like a concert of them singing and playing instruments. 

I should tell you now that what is dubbed “Potty Talk” is not allowed in this household.  You know, words like doo-doo, poo-poo, tee-tee, etc.  I never quite got why all of these words needed to be the same syllable repeated, but it seems to work that way, doesn’t it?  Well, they were about to start their first number, and were discussing what it should be, when through red-faced, giggling such as can only be heard from a 3 yr. old boy, one of them said, “Let’s do the poopy song.”  Obviously, this was followed by much more giggling.  I am admitting to you now that I did not have the heart to censor the potty talk at this moment…they were having so much fun.  So, I let them begin the song, which to my surprise, ended up being something of a mixture between “Jesus Loves Me” and lyrics full of all of the words mentioned above as well as any others you can imagine fitting into the potty talk category, such as “pooty,” “tooty,” “doody,” “pee-pee” and more.  I have to confess that I was laughing hysterically more than anything else.  I’m sure Jesus would understand. 

These guys are just great.  I know they’re only 3, but I swear that a testosterone rush is the first thing that happens when they get together.  My regular kid will be completely normal, and when down-the-street kid shows up, there is an immediate discourse almost exclusively about whose muscles are bigger (I’m not kidding!), poopy and garbage, followed by a succession of, ummmm, potty noises, to put it tactfully.

When asked what they would like to do, a very adament pronouncement of, “Eat garbage!!” has been heard more than once.  This is usually followed by discussions about how they like to eat garbage because they’re boys and boys like gross things.

Boys, indeed, will be boys.

1 Comment

Lessons from a Six Year Old

August 13, 2007 at 11:05 pm (Christianity, Confession, Discipline, Expectations, Humility, Individuality, Jesus, Jobs, Kids, Pride, Religion, Self-Esteem)

In case y’all haven’t figured this out yet, I over-analyze everything.  Or maybe I just analyze everything.  I’m not really sure if there is an overage.  The past few days I have been seriously contemplating the psyche of this six year old girl I babysit pretty frequently.  I was telling my boyfriend that if she didn’t figure something out, she was going to lead one miserable life…not that I’m giving up on anyone at six, you know.  She’s a great kid – smart, funny, all that stuff.  Her problem is that no matter what is going on, what game we’re playing or how many people are around, she tries to control everything.  Rules, rules, rules…she is constantly making up rules that everyone else is supposed to follow…things like which side of the yard boys are allowed on and who is supposed to play with whom and when it is time to move onto the next game.  But those are the big rules.  Just trust me when I say that she has serious micro-management issues.  And she always gets upset, because the world (other people) just don’t always follow her rules.  The other day it was slightly chaotic as there were cousins visiting.  Four cousins, to be precise.  Add this to my standard two and we get six, yes, six kids.  So, as you could easily surmise, this was a recipe for disappointment for my six year old girl.  Getting her sensitive, introspective four year old brother to be her puppet seems to be a specialty.  However, trying to use the same treatment on said 4 cousins was simply a hopeless case.  Nobody would EVER play what she wanted to play, and definitely not the way she had envisioned it being played.  I always try to talk to her when she gets upset by situations like this, hoping that some of it will sink in at some point.  I say things like, “You can’t expect everybody to follow your rules all of the time, especially when there are this many people.  You just have to kind of go with the flow and try to have fun.”  Response: “But I don’t WAAANNNT to go with the flow,” with much sobbing.  Me again, “Well, everybody doesn’t want to play the same thing you want to.  They get to choose what they play, and you get to choose what you play, but you don’t get to choose for them.”  Her response, “Why is it always about what they want?!”  I’m not sure how to get across that it could be about what she wants, too, if she let it be, but controlling her own destiny is not enough for her.  “I want to play with _______ (insert name),” she says.  The problem is she doesn’t care if they want to play back as long as they do.  She really does want little puppet playmates who will sit where she wants them to sit and play with the things she tells them to play with (and nothing else, mind you) and do it exactly the way she imagined.  The other kids around are usually quite content as long as they get to choose for themselves what they do at a given moment.  She is not happy unless everyone is following her command.  That is what she wants to do, so unless there is a subject to control, she is not getting to do what she wants to do, even if she has chosen her own action.  Are you following me here?  I have a point, really I do, but it’s even sort of lost in my own head right now, so I’m sure you guys have probably all stopped reading by now.  I can see how, given that what she wants to do is tell everyone else what to do, it could seem to her that she never gets to do what she wants to do.  I sort of feel bad for her in that I’m not sure how to make her see that if that person does not want to play what she wants to play, then she really does not want to play with that person. 

I have actually sort of taken this in a different direction than I meant to, although I have thought these things.  But it’s taken me away from my point(s).  My point is that I have been looking at myself and realizing how much I follow in this pattern of thinking.  I want everyone to behave the way I think they ought to (as mentioned in my Recipro-City post), and I get really grouchy when they do not.  I do not exactly expect to be able to control them, but I do always think that they must not be trying hard enough to listen to the voice of reason.  I do, actually, often think it is my duty to show them what they are doing wrong and what they should do to fix it.  So, in a way, I do try to control because then I am frustrated if they do not change. 

You may have gathered from a few of my other posts that I have been a little frustrated with jobs and things, which translates into something akin to depression as jobs take up a lot of time, you know, and so when jobs are what’s buggin’ you, well, it’s hard to get away from it. 

But tonight, I took a lesson on what NOT to do from a six year old.  I always wish that I could make her see that her position is not so bad…that at this moment, she gets to choose her activity.  I am not making her do anything unpleasant.  She is surrounded by fun things to do in the great American home of toys and more toys and yards and swing sets and sprinklers and puzzles and books and crayons…all of which she enjoys.  All this to choose from, yet she is choosing to be miserable instead. 

I have been doing this myself…coming home from work and choosing to allow the frustration to follow me around like a shadow into everything else I do.  When I am not at work, the moments are mine (well, really God’s if I let them be, but you know what I mean).  They are mine, but I had been relinquishing them to the power that I had given to my frustration.  All moments were held captive by what I was not allowed to do or by what I was forced to do.  Tonight I looked at my evening and remembered that it was mine.  I got to choose what I did with it.  I have not been choosing very wisely here lately…turning to things that keep my mind thoughtlessly occupied, and in this only adding to the feeling that I was not doing anything worthwhile. 

There are a lot of points that I have not made, although I alluded to them.  Here are two of the main things I am trying to teach myself through this:

1) Even if my rules are the best rules and the game I made up would be the best game if everyone would pay attention (which is all highly unlikely), I can only force the rules upon myself.  Trying to force other people into my mold will always make me miserable.

2) When I am allowed to choose what I do with my own time, I should choose wisely and let it be enough, because THAT moment is my own.  The bad should not be allowed to creep into the good.  (By the way, I think this is sort of a lazy-man’s fix.  The real fix is to figure out how to get the good to creep into the bad.)

5 Comments

Kids Are Funny

August 3, 2007 at 5:57 pm (Funny, Jobs, Kids)

So, I told y’all I was a temp nanny right?  Well, this means I keep lots of different kids all of the time.  Doing this has made me appreciate them a lot more.  They are hilarious.  Here is a collection of some of the funniest things they’ve said.

During a game of 3 on 1 “tie up” the babysitter from a 3 yr. old boy: 

“I’m going to pour hot bubble gum gas on you!”

Conversation between me and a 5 yr. old girl after her disappointment at finding the cupboards empty of hot chocolate:

5 yr. old girl: “But I really wanted some hot chocolate!” in her best whiny voice.

Me: “Well, I don’t know what to tell you.  I can’t make hot chocolate out of thin air.”

5 yr. old girl: “But I know how to make hot chocolate out of thin hair.” 

Conversation between me and a 3 yr. old boy while driving in my car:

3 yr. old boy: “What’s that thing?”

Me: “It’s an ice scraper.  It’s for when you get snow and ice on your car windows.  You use it to clean them off so you can see to drive.”

3 yr. old boy (after pause): “Can you do that by yourself?”

Me: “What do you mean?”

3 yr. old boy: “Well, did you have to get a grown up to help you?”

Me: Poor attempt at stifled laughter.  (I’m 29 yrs old.)

3 yr. old boy (after second pause): “Are you a grown up?”

Me: “Yeah, I’m kind of a grown up.”

3 yr. old boy: “Yeah, I’m kind of a grown up, too.” 

Conversation with a 4 yr. old girl while having a pretend picnic in the hall:

Me: “What are we having to eat?”

4 yr. old girl: “Broccoli.”

Me (thinking it was odd for a 4 yr. old to volunteer broccoli): “Do you like broccoli?”

4 yr. old girl: “No, I’m having chicken nuggets.  You’re having broccoli.”

Conversation with a 3 yr. old girl:

Me: “I like your jeans.”

3 yr. old girl: “Thanks.  They have a rope to tie them up.”

Me: “I see that.”

3 yr. old girl: “That’s so the wind doesn’t blow my pants off.”

Conversation with a 7 yr. old girl after she told me the same story twice in 10 minutes:

7 yr. old girl: “Did I already tell you that?”

Me: “Yeah, but that’s OK.”

7 yr. old girl, shrugging: “You start to forget things when you get older.”

Conversation with 3 yr. old boy proving premeditated bad behavior:

3 yr. old: “I think when I wake up tomorrow I’m going to be really, really messy.”

Me: “Oh, yeah?  Like what kind of stuff are you going to do?”

3 yr. old: “Well, I might turn that kitchen over (pointing to his toy kitchen), and pull all of the stuff off of it.  And I might take those (pointing to 3 large toy drawers) and dump them out and then just put the stuff everywhere (with much large gesturing).”

Conversation with 3 yr. old boy:

3 yr. old boy: “Sometimes I like to try to go to school naked.  One time, I took my clothes off and I was running around the house and then I hid from my mom.”

Me: “What did your mom think about this?”

3 yr. old boy:  “I don’t think she was very happy.”

Impromptu song sung by 4 yr. old girl pretending to be a rock star (imagine in very sing-song, dramatic fashion):

“When I was this many (holding up 3 fingers) – I used to be scared of the dark – And I had to sleep with the nite lite on – Because I was sca-ared of the ghost-es – And I was scared of the ghost-es – Because I accidentally watched Ghost Hunters with my mom.”

I think that’ll do for now…I have more, but maybe another day.  I hope it made you smile!

4 Comments