<p>My niece and her husband are both avid Michigan alums and have been dressing their sons in Michigan logoware, since they were babies. Their son, now 3 1/2 has been working on the alphabet, but has been having a little trouble: “J, K, L, Michigan, N, O, P…”</p>
<p>Isn’t that how it goes???</p>
<p>LOL. One of my S’s goes by his initial. When D was learning the alphabet, she always followed that letter with the name of her other brother. She loved them equally.</p>
<p>A friend of mine and her daughter were on a city bus when the D was about three. </p>
<p>The family had spent a lot of time - as most of us do, but maybe more than usual given that they live in NYC - emphasizing to their kids that if they saw someone they thought was odd or different, it was fine to have questions, but that they shouldn’t stare or bother the person; they should save their questions and talk to their parents about it later, at home. D was a particularly chatty kid, and very inclined to comment on her neighbors, so they’d really been driving the point home lately.</p>
<p>And of course, who should take the seat opposite but an older guy with some obvious disabilities, including having only one leg. My friend sat rigid with tension, hoping for the best. D said not a word, and apparently did her three-year-old best not to stare. Friend began to relax and congratulate herself.</p>
<p>They reached their street before the guy reached his. They stood, and my friend moved toward the door ahead of her D, holding her hand. She was just about to give a huge inner sigh of relief when she felt D stop, and turned to see her face-to-face with the man, in fact practically nose-to-nose. Dead silence for a minute. Then she smiled. “We’ll talk about you later,” she said happily.</p>
<p>Too funny, Harriet. </p>
<p>These all are adorable, and are reminding me to pull out the journal & put down some cute 6 yo stuff my youngest does…you think you’ll never forget, but you do.</p>
<p>I’ve told this one here before, but it was about 3 years ago - apologies to any who remember! I think this is the funniest thing any one of my three kids ever said (so far, anyway):</p>
<p>When my oldest d was 2 and a half years old, a favorite plaything was a plastic set of barnyard animals. One day, she flipped over the cow, pointed to its nether regions, and asked, “What’s that?” “Those are her udders, where the milk comes from,” I replied brightly. Flipping over the bull, she asked, “And what’s that?” Well, there was some vague protruberance there, and deciding to take advantage of a teachable moment, I gave her the anatomically correct word.</p>
<p>Next day, her great grandparents were visiting for lunch, and she brought the cow and bull in to the dining room. Holding the cow over a tea cup, she said, “Now the cow will give us some milk.” Then, holding the bull in a similar position, she announced, “And now the bull will give us some peanuts.”</p>
<p>Really - we laughed till we cried. I love the way kids’ minds work! “Lower case dark” made me think of this.</p>
<p>Frazzled - you’re making me laugh with tears!</p>
<p>The cow and bull story reminds me:</p>
<p>Sister 2 was four years old when mom was pregnant with the next baby. Parents were in Lamaze classes, and explained to S2 that Mommy and Daddy had to go to classes at night because Daddy has to help Mommy push the baby out, since it’s his baby too and it’s important for the whole family to be together.</p>
<p>Later, the family went to a farm zoo and one of the cows began giving birth right there on display. The keepers explained what was happening so that families could decide whether to let their children watch. When S2 understood what was going on, she climbed the railing and shouted, “WHERE IS THE BULL?? THE BULL SHOULD BE HERE WHEN HIS BABY IS BEING BORN!!”</p>
<p>S2 is now a professor of obstetrics. :)</p>
<p>Re post #12:</p>
<p>When I was in second or third grade, some kid at school was being rude to me. I’m not sure how I learned it, but I knew that homosapien meant “human being.” I also knew that homosexual = something this kid didn’t want to be called… and that he’d probably think they were both the same. So I called him a homosapien until he went crying to the teacher, who just laughed and explained what the word meant.</p>
<p>When D was very small one of the books she loved was called “Odd Todd and Even Steven” - it was about numbers. We did not see one of my brothers (Todd) often, but when D was old enough to say his name he instantly became “Odd Todd” and remainded so for many years. Luckily he has a good sense of humor.</p>
<p>frazzled - your story is great and it reminded me of a friend who was traveling on an airplane for the first time with her little girl, who was also just learning anatomically correct names. They were sitting next to a young man from the Naval Academy. A little into the flight, he asked the little girl if she would like some peanuts, to which she smiled and replied quite proudly, “No thank you, I have a vagina.” I’ll bet that young man remembers that to this day.</p>
<p>^^^ I’ll bet he does! My d will be happy to learn that she wasn’t the only 2 year old to be confused about peanuts. :)</p>
<p>I was thinking of older kids when I started this thread, but you all* have triggered some great memories.</p>
<p>Anecdote 1: When both of our boys were almost three, WashMom started telling them that “big boys of three” don’t use bottles or binkies (pacifiers) any more. This took the form of, “remember, after your birthday, no more bottles – no more binkies.” On WashDadJr’s third birthday, he asked if this meant “no more bottles, no more binkies.” WashMom replied, “that’s right, big boys don’t use bottles or binkies.” WashDadJr said, “But mommy, I’m just a wittle guy.” OK, he was trying to say “little” but it came out “wittle” and it’s much cuter that way.</p>
<ul>
<li>ObGrammarReference: English desperately needs a couple of things: a gender-neutral pronoun for people, and a second person plural pronoun. You all get to work on that, OK? Hint: “You guys” is the wrong answer.</li>
</ul>
<p>Anecdote 2: An unnamed, very northern European-looking 2-year-old in the store spied his first African-American since learning that people are different in some ways. In a loud, clear voice: “Mommy why doesn’t that man wash his face? You always make **me **wash my face.” Sometimes having really articulate toddlers is NOT a good thing.</p>
<p>Years ago, a friend of mine who believes that in dealing with children you should be completely straightforward about answering questions about the body, was nursing her baby in the ladies room of a large department store in New York. </p>
<p>A little girl about 4 or 5 came in and stared. She was absolutely fascinated and soon was standing about two inches from my friend, watching the baby nurse. Finally, she asked what the baby was doing and why she was doing it. My friend explained that the baby was sucking in order to get milk from her breast. </p>
<p>The little girl was obviously disbelieving . With utter disdain, she said “Yeah, sure. And there’s orange juice on the other side, right?”</p>
<p>Anecdote 3: At that 2-to-3-year-old stage when they are learning that boys and girls have different body parts, one of my sons (identity covered up to protect his self respect) spent a couple of weeks telling everyone that “I have a *****, but <girl’s name=”“> has a 'gina!” WashMom and I didn’t find it particularly embarrassing but it did draw some interesting reactions. My mother, in particular, thought it was howlingly funny. I think she thought of it as payback for some of the things I said and did as a kid. Did I ever tell you about my one and only appearance on live television, and how I used that opportunity to interrupt the host during a live stand-up commercial to announce that my mother didn’t use the sponsor’s product because it was too expensive? She told that story until she died.</girl’s></p>
<p>I met a 2 year old girl at a family party, and she was very friendly and learning everyone’s name. She got “Hanna” right, she got “Charlotte” right, but she couldn’t seem to nail “Naomi” – she kept saying “Na-o.” Naomi kept repeating her own name over and over: “Say Na-o-MEE, Na-o-MEEE.” Finally the child got exasperated and shouted, “No, Nao YOU.”</p>
<p>Kids also love it when they discover that things in the world are named after them. When my sister Eve and I were about 4 and 2, we thought that there was a holiday for each of us: Christmas Eve and Hanna-kah. When Lea started ballet class at age 5, she wore a “Lea-tard,” and Naomi (age 2) wanted a “Naomi-tard.”</p>
<p>One of D’s first cuss words was “sticky head”, which she picked up from another kid who presumably called her a “stinky head”.</p>
<p>S at one end of a department store announces he needs to go to the bathroom. I say" hold your horses" and try to frogmarch him to the other side of the store where the toilets are located (aren’t they always at the other end when you need them?) He walks as fast as he can all the while saying “I’m holding my horses, mummy, I’m holding my horses.” Half-way across, he suddenly stops and says: “Mummy, my horses, they’ve all run away.” Hasty retreat and end of shopping trip.</p>
<p>One day when S was about 3, I mentioned that a friend’s house had gotten broken into while they were away. S said “How did they put it back together?” It took me a couple of beats before I realized that he thought I had said that the house was broken in two :)</p>
<p>Same S, a year earlier, was ill one morning with upset stomach and diarrhea. As the day went on, he felt much better so we went out for dinner at a local neighborhood restaurant. The waitress came over to take our order and said to S, “And how are YOU doing tonight?”. He smiled at her and said, “I have DONNARHEA!” Of course, it sounded exactly like he had said gonorrhea. The poor waitress was speechless :eek: and the people at the next table were horrified. We still tease him about it ;)</p>