<p>Daughter, at 6: “If it weren’t for all the bad things I inherited from you, I would be PERFECT.”</p>
<p>Daughter, at 4: We were at an archaeology museum, looking at a massive pre-Columbian sculpture of a naked male figure, anatomically correct except for maybe some exaggeration.</p>
<p>Me: Can you tell whether that’s a boy or a girl?
She: It’s a girl! (No hesitation.)
Me: Really? How can you tell?
She: She’s wearing earrings in both ears. Boys only wear earrings in one ear.</p>
<p>D1, when she was 3, said she had bees in her shoe went her foot fell asleep. D3 at about the same age was with me in a store dressing room while I was trying on swim suits. She shouted out “momma, I can see your milkers”.</p>
<p>When my daughter was 3, it didn’t make sense to her that possessive pronouns were his, hers, yours, theirs, and ours, but mine is only “singular”.</p>
<p>She always said “mines”.</p>
<p>My husband and I have said (to each other) “mines” since we first heard her say it, and we just can’t change.</p>
<p>Hopefully I won’t be in a job interview waiting room, and the hiring manager won’t come out and ask “whose wonderful resume is this?”</p>
<p>My son’s teacher asked if if we lived on the water (in our town) and she told me he gave her the “oddest” look for a moment and replied, “No we don’t live on the water, we live next to the water.” I also loved the little printed turtlenecks that you used to be able get for boys. About age 5 my oldest came down the stairs with several in his hands and declared “I’m not the type of boy who wears these kinds of shirts.” So sad, that was the end of the “little boy clothes.”</p>
<p>I don’t know if this counts, because S is only a HS Junior, and it wasn’t “said”, it was written. Anyway…</p>
<p>When he was in third grade I went in to the Parent’s open house one evening early in the school year. We listened to the teacher talk for awhile and then were welcomed to go and find our child’s artwork on the wall. The kids had each completed a handout with “About me…” type of information. Things like “My name is…Justakid” “My friend’s names are…Billy and Tommy.” “My favorite color is…Blue” </p>
<p>At the bottom was the phrase “I Wish…” The other kids wrote stuff like “I wish…it was summer all the time” or “I wish…I could have candy for dinner” So here I was, standing with all the other mom’s reading S’s wish. </p>
<p>“I wish…my mom was nice.” </p>
<p>When I got home I marched up to his room and asked him about it. He didn’t see anything at all wrong with it! Turned out, what he meant, was that he wished his mom was NICE, all the time, like she usually is…or something like that. <strong>sigh</strong></p>
<p>When D was 5, she decided she wanted to help me shovel the snow. We went outside, I gave her the little plastic shovel, and told her she could do the walkway to the front porch while I did the driveway. I could hear her working away, moaning and groaning and complaining (it wasn’t terribly deep, but it was wet sticky snow and I think it was sticking to her shovel). Finally I said, “Honey, do you want me to come over there and help you?”</p>
<p>She dropped her shovel, put her hands on her hips, and announced, “I don’t WANT your help, but I NEED your help. THAT’s my problem.”</p>
<p>All of childhood, summed up one sentence.</p>
<p>Should I be surprised that now she wants to be a psychology major?</p>
<p>When my oldest was 2 or 3, my housekeeper would sometimes say to my daughter as I walked out the back door, “Give Mommy a kiss; she has to go and make the bacon.” Sometime that year the headmistress of my daughter’s pre-school called me at work at my law firm (where I had recently become partner), and she was laughing so hard she could barely talk. In class that day the teacher had asked who had a mother who worked. My daughter had raised her hand and proudly volunteered, “I do. My mother cooks bacon!!!”</p>
<p>Lafalum–
That’s amazing!</p>
<p>This thread has inspired me to a)look in son’s baby book and b)finish writing in son’s baby book before he becomes an uncle in a week or so! </p>
<p>Above I said one of my kids said bull-zu-zu for bulldozer. The current HS senior said bulwer or dooboer. (The boys all liked those guy vehicles, doncha’ know.)</p>
<p>momof3boys–I stopped buying my S underwear with superheroes on them at about age 8, when he looked at the latest ones I brought home and said, “Why do they always have to put those things on them?” I apologized and bought some plain white ones.</p>
<p>Speaking of Super Heroes, Son used to run around saying “I’m Bath Mat.” (Bat Man.)</p>
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<p>Whenever we have a shower for one of our young pregnant lawyers, I always tell her to write as much as possible in the baby book before she returns to work, because she may never get back to it. According to the baby books, I don’t think any of my kids ever grew teeth.</p>
<p>This is my third contribution, but all of these posts just bring back a lot of memories…</p>
<p>My husband started to cook after D1 was born, so I would have more time to spend with her. He actually became quite good at it, and I was just never that good. At that time we were living in NYC. </p>
<p>When D1 was around 2, H had to go on a business trip. As soon as I came home from work, I ran into the kitchen to try to start dinner. D1 came running into the kitchen to say, “Call the man, call the man.” I didn’t know why she wanted to call the man (what man?) She started to pull me away from the stove, and I finally figured out that she wanted me to order take out, she didn’t want me to cook, and “the man” was the delivery man.</p>
<p>missypie–I just got a “baby’s first year” calendar for my D (who is expecting) because I remember it was the one thing I wrote in a little bit every day. The formal baby books were a little more hit and miss, I have to admit.</p>
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<p>That’s one thing I can do to this day if I want to make my own mother feel guilty - point to my almost entirely empty baby book (and contrast it with my older sister’s completed baby book).</p>
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<p>Lol, my parents didn’t even have a baby book for me. My dad made one for my older sister though (same dad, different moms) :(.</p>
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<p>My husband’s is one that their bank gave them for free…it’s got bank ads in it. He’s a twin and they shared the one (free) book.</p>
<p>My sister is a very lenient mother, and when she brings the kids to Grandma’s house, they learn with a shock that Grandma makes and enforces rules.</p>
<p>My 3 yo nephew LOVED a certain toy Grandma bought him, but he kept carrying it all over the house and forgetting where he’d left it (prompting hysteria until it was found). Grandma got tired of this and told him he had to play with it in his room, and not leave it around the house. When he tried to take it out again, she told him in a calm, serious voice that if he didn’t follow the rules for that toy, she would take it back to the store. He knew she meant business. So he ran down the stairs screaming, “HELP, Mommy, HELP! HELP!”</p>
<p>One for each D:</p>
<p>D1 at age 2: her dad was teasing her and I said “honey, tell Daddy ‘don’t push your luck.’” she looked sternly at H and said “Daddy, don’t push my yuck!” that’s the one we still repeat ;)</p>
<p>D2 at age 3: one day when I was annoyed with her for some reason, D2, a little confused about prepositions (e.g., happy about, mad at), asked me: “mommy, are you mad about me?” Not sure how I responded out loud, but in my heart, I said, “Yes, I am absolutely mad about you, sweetie pie.”</p>
<p>I caught my D at about 2 1/2 climbing up the sofa to jump from the top to the cushion to the floor, apparently over and over again. I told her to stop, walked out of the room. I came back a few minutes later to find her poised at the top of the sofa back. She said “Mommy, don’t look”. </p>
<p>I stood there and projected forward about 13 years or so. Yikes.</p>
<p>A baby book? I was my parent’s third child in 32 months,I was lucky to get a few pictures in the family albums. My sister’s (child #4) pictures are still in the shoebox.</p>
<p>The youngest had a hard time understanding that the older kids had a different dad. When she was about 3 years old she questioned me. “Did you know you used to be married to Pop?”</p>
<p>My third kid followed a gap of nearly 7 years. Still has an empty baby book. Sorry, some of us fall down on some jobs.
Our family favorites: Son called my hair dryer a “hey-do-do”. First time on a plane, when the engines started up, he looked at the man in the seat next to us and hollered “Hey, Do-do!” Man was alittle disconcerted…
Youngest was on her first solo car trip with just parents and we passed a field of cows. She suddenly realized that the pictures in her books were the same as the animals we were seeing. In an amazed voice she announced “I understand those cows!”</p>