The Things My Kids Say

One of the best baby shower gifts I ever received was a small, blank journal entitled, “My Quotable Kid.” Each page has a place to list a child’s name, the date, the place, and something funny or memorable that he or she said. When I received it, I had no idea how much it would be used or how much I would cherish it. I had no idea that both of my children would be so well-spoken, so wise, and so hysterically funny.

I also love the way the book allows me to look back and see how my children’s thoughts about the world and their ways of expressing themselves have changed and grown over time. One of my son’s earliest quotes is from a day when he had just broken yet another toy, and my husband asked him in frustration, “Ryan, why do you always break things?!?” and he responded, in a very matter of fact voice, “Because they’re breakable.” We should have known right then and there that this would be a practical, sensible, no-nonsense kind of kid who always comes up with logical answers to things. So it’s not surprising that a year later, when we were in the car on the way to a friend’s house and he asked if we were on a highway and we told him no, he said quietly to himself, “Oh, we’re on a low-way.”

His logical problem-solving skills continued to come out over the following months and years, as recorded in conversations like this one:

R: “Mama, come and play with me!”
Me: “As soon as I finish putting this load of laundry in.”
R: “No, now!”
Me: “What will you do when we have no clean clothes to wear?”
R: [thinks for a moment] “I will go upstairs and swim in the bathtub.”

Sometimes, logic and hilarity cross over, as in this conversation:

[crash from the next room; cue my daughter Katie wailing]
Me: “What happened, guys?”
R: “We crashed.”
Me: “Ask Katie if she’s okay.”
R: “Katie, are you okay?”
K: [wails loudly]
R: “I guess that would be a ‘no’.”

Or the time when he was 5, and we went to a restaurant where they have a big basket of shelled peanuts to snack on. I offered him a handful that I had already shelled, and he looked at them in surprise and asked, “Oh, are these the kind with no lid?” Or the time when he was admiring his grown-up cousin’s fancy pedicure and he solemnly informed her that he liked her toenail disguises. Or the time when he was jumping off the couch into a stuffed chair and nearly face-planted into the TV, then announced, “Well, I guess I haven’t worked the kinks out yet.” Logic and hilarity.

His younger sister isn’t quite the deep thinker that he is, but she comes up with some equally hilarious commentary, much of which is, not surprisingly, influenced by having (and trying to keep up with) a big brother. For example, she was watching Star Wars with her brother, and I asked her who the big hairy guy was. She confidently informed me, “That’s Toboggan the Whoopie.” I also suspect her brother’s influence in the time she asked me if I would play “Shooting and Ladders” with her.

Sometimes she does sneak a bit of logic in with her hilarity, though. Like the time I left the room and came back to find her stark naked except for her diaper. I asked her what happened to her shirt, and without missing a beat, she said, “It ran away.” Or the time she looked at a wedding photo of me and told me I looked like Jesus. I asked her, “Oh, because I’m wearing a long white dress?” She all but rolled her eyes at me as she corrected me: “No! Because of the thing on your head!” Logic and hilarity.

But some of the best quotes from this book aren’t the ones that are logical or the ones that are hilarious. They’re the ones that touch my heart, the ones that get me right in the feels. They’re the ones that remind me of the innocent sweetness of young children. And they’re usually the ones that seem to come out of the clear blue, with little or no context. Comments like the time my son randomly informed me, “Mom, if I had kids, I would love them just as much as you love me.” Or the time he saw an ad for the nursing home placement service called “A Place for Mom,” and he patted my hand as he told me, “Maybe I will call ‘A Place for Mom’ for you when you are old.” Or the time my daughter had a cold and I helped her blow her nose and she quietly hugged me and said, “Thanks, Mom. You’re a very good mommy.” Or the time she suddenly shouted at the top of her lungs, “I NEED A KISS!!!! RIGHT NOW!!!!” and after I raced over to kiss her, she calmly told me, “Thanks, Mum.”

Those are the little moments that I’m sure at the time that I’ll remember forever, and yet in all the business of life and all the continuing changes and maturity of my children I somehow manage to forget. So I love having this little book to look back on and remind me of those sweet moments. 

My Kids are Funny

My son spoke very clearly – and in complete sentences - at a very early age, and ever since then he’s been ahead of the curve verbally. My daughter wasn’t quite as advanced but she makes up for it with the sheer hilarity of what she says. Actually, both of them are pretty funny. My husband is fond of saying that if we could catch even five percent of the funny stuff they say on video we could post it on YouTube and make millions.

I write down a lot of the funny things they say, but somehow the humor is often lost without both the context and the delivery. For example, the other day my son proclaimed, completely out of the blue, “Sometimes, I just HAVE to lick my elbow.” Now, that’s a pretty funny line by itself, but when you add in the fact that it was a total non sequitur and the perfectly serious delivery complete with slightly furrowed brow, it’s REALLY funny. My daughter gets in on the non sequitur act herself, like a few weeks ago when in the middle of quietly playing with her dolls, she suddenly shouted from across the room in an urgent, almost panicked tone of voice, “I NEED A KISS!!! RIGHT NOW!!!!” Of course, I raced right over and kissed her, and she responded very calmly and matter-of-factly, “Thanks, Mum,” and went back to playing with her dolls as if nothing unusual had happened. And yet another time, she was playing with a toy giraffe near a pair of my sneakers that were on the floor, when she suddenly stuffed the giraffe into one of the sneakers and announced, “We gotta go. Come on, giraffe. We gotta go. Get in the shoe. GET IN THE SHOOOOEEEEEE!!!!!!!”

Sometimes my son is funny because he makes up words to express something that he doesn’t know the right word for. After enjoying a particularly buttery English muffin for breakfast one day, he examined his hands carefully and informed me, “Mama, I need to wash my hands. They’re all…muffin saucy.” Making up words is nothing new for him, though. When he was about 3, we were driving home from a friend’s house and he asked my husband if we were on a highway. Upon being informed that we weren’t at the moment, he quietly murmured to himself, “Oh, we’re on a low-way.” At about the same age, he noticed my niece’s pedicure and informed her that he really liked her toenail disguises.

At ages 3 and almost 5, my kids are smack in the middle of the time of life when everything is new and amazing. They’re young enough that they’re constantly experiencing things for the first time, and they’re old enough to be able to process and appreciate those experiences. And they’re full of curiosity about everything around them. Half of what makes them funny is the pure joy and wonder they find in everything that’s around them. Their joy is contagious, and you can’t help but laugh with them as they discover the joy and humor in the world around them.