Little gems
The endearing and amusing things that children do and say...
After their bedtime story I always sang my daughters a song before they settled down.
One night I asked Helen what song she would like.
"Oh the blue man song mummy" she replied.
I was puzzled, and told her I did not know that one.
"Yes you do mummy," she replied, "you know, blue man grow forever".
The penny dropped - she wanted Edelweiss, which included the words "bloom and grow forever".
Sylvia Maguire, Croydon
My six-year-old daughter Shaye came out of school one day and told me that her friend Leah had changed her surname from Farrelly to Jacobs.
I said to Shaye: "maybe her mummy got married and changed her name and Leah's."
Shaye pondered a while and replied: "Oh no Mummy, she just couldn't spell Farrelly."
Where do babies come from?!?
After fostering a variety of age children for four years we received the request to care for a premature baby. I left in the morning to pick the infant up at the local maternity hospital.
My own three-year-old son assumed I had gone shopping and was delighted when I returned with the tiny infant in arms.
Master three-year-old adored the baby and quickly became big brother. When the Social Worker visited and leaned over to look at baby, Master three-year-old protectively covered baby and said loudly:
Social Worker roared with laughter.
My son Joseph (aged two) was visiting a friend of ours who was nine months pregnant.
When he leaned on her bump she said: "Careful there's a baby in there." Well his reply was: "Don't be silly".
He obviously thought more about it because the next day he said to me: "Mummy, why does Hazel eat babies?" Erm?!!
We assured him that she doesn't!
Our youngest son (7) was telling us all about his day at school including..................how he had learnt about the digestive system .............and how he had been hit in a rather tender place at playtime during a rather physical game of football.
As he used rather undesirable language to describe this tender part of his anatomy I said: "We don't say that here," so he replied very sincerely: "Sorry mummy.......I meant to say my large intestines".
My seven-year-old daughter gave new meaning to the term 'family tree' today.
Coming out of school she told me she had some half term homework that I had to help her with - drawing her family tree.
I said: "Ooh that's interesting" to which she replied earnestly: "I don't think I'll do the Scottish trees because I don't know what they look like'.
At this point I wondered what on earth she was going on about and thought that maybe she meant her father's side of the family who descend from Scotland centuries ago.
But then she said in a very decided tone: "No I think I'll do the cherry in the garden" and it was then that I twigged (sorry couldn't resist that one) and realised she had her wires crossed.
The Scottish trees she was referring to were actually two trees my other half had bought me for Christmas in one of those adopt-a-tree schemes to plant new native British forests.
I don't think I'll think of family trees in quite the same way ever again...
The other day one of my foster children was at Beavers and they were playing a game called octopus and had to stand pretending they were octopi.
My little lad said: "I cannot really be an octopus because they have eight
spectacles."
All of us leaders started to giggle but another child interrupted
and said: "They are not spectacles are they? They are called testicles!"
We were all on the floor helpless with laughter with 24 boys looking with
astonishment at all these leaders in hopeless hysterics.
from a foster carer in Croydon
A friend of mine's daughter is a stubborn child and will do what she wants to
do, not what she is told to do, most of the time.
One day the local council had cut the grass near where she lived. She was
playing with the grass and had an armful of it as a couple were passing her.
They looked at her, she looked back. Then the lady said to her: "You
wouldnt dare." So what did she do? Yes...all over them!
Sent in by an adoptive mother from Scotland
An eight-year-old's homework on the subject of who God is just what he does all day. Click here
A boy had reached four without giving up the habit of sucking his thumb, though his mother had tried everything from bribery to reasoning to painting it with lemon juice to discourage the habit.
Finally she tried threats, warning her son that: "If you don't stop sucking your thumb, your stomach is going to blow up like a balloon."
Later that day, walking in the park, mother and son saw a pregnant woman sitting on a bench. The four-year-old considered her gravely for a minute, then spoke to her saying: "Uh-oh...I know what you've been doing!"
Sent in anonymously
A mother was teaching her three-year-old the Lord's prayer. For several evenings at bedtime she repeated it after her mother.
One night she said she was ready to solo. The mother listened with pride as she carefully enunciated each word, right up to the end of the prayer. "Lead us not into temptation," she prayed, "but deliver us some e-mail, Amen."
Sent in anonymously
Brotherly love?
Last night I was playing a board game with my two children, when my daughter Hannah, who is six, became rather confused about her turn.
I had to explain things several times on top of much verbal procrastination from her. After she had finally caught on, I turned to my nine-year-old son Rory and said in mock exasperation: "Your sister, honestly, she's hopeless case."
He readily agreed.
"Yes, she's a foot and mouth case," he replied, rather hopefully.
However, I'm sure he is not the only older brother who thinks that the culling of small sisters who could rabbit for England would be mark of progress in the world.
Sent in by a foster carer from Gloucestershire
On taking things literally...
When my friend's little girl was small, her mum was always telling her to tell her when she needed the toilet. They were in McDdonalds one day, so Natalie, being the good little girl and doing as she was told to do, proceeded to stand on the chair and in a very loud voice, shouted: "MUMMY, I NEED A POO."
Another friend of mine's daughter, Michelle, was told by her parents (for a joke) that an elderly neighbour liked WWF (wrestling).
But the joke backfired and believing what she was told, a few days later Michelle crept out of her house and stuck ALL
her WWF stickers on the lady's front door, about 20 of them.
She thought she would be making the lady in question happy...her mum wasn't when she had to clean off all the stickers.
from an approved adoptive mum, Yorkshire
Four-year-old James was eating a hot dog when he dropped it on the floor. He quickly picked it up and was about to take another bite when his mum said: "No, James, you can't eat that now it has germs."
James pondered the thought a moment and replied: "Jesus, germs, and Santa Claus - that's all I ever hear and I haven't seen one of them yet!"
Sent in anonymously
A five-year-old girl was watching a minister baptising a baby in church and asked, with a quizzical look on her face: "Daddy, why is he brainwashing that baby?"
Sent in anonymously
A little boy was at a relative's wedding. As he was coming down the aisle he would take two steps, stop, and turn to the crowd (alternating between bride's side and groom's side). While facing the crowd, he would put his hands up like claws and roar loudly.
So it went, step, step, ROAR, step, step, ROAR all the way down the aisle.
As you can imagine, the crowd was near tears from laughing so hard by the time he reached the front. The little boy, however, was getting more and more distressed from all the laughing, and was near tears by the time he reached the pulpit.
When asked what he was doing, the child sniffed and said: "I was being the Ring Bear."
Sent in anonymously
A friend's little girl is very 'forthcoming' with her opinions and when a lady her mum knows wanted to give her a goodbye kiss she replied: "I do like you, really I do, it's just I can't kiss you because your teeth are all horrible colours!"
Needless to say, she rang the dentist the same day!!
Adoptive mum-in-waiting, Wales
When my niece, was four or five years of age and very much a tomboy, we asked her what she wanted to do when she was grown up.
"I don't want to cut hair or drive a bus," she relied, "all I want to do is
be a boy!"
from Jan Young, Anglesey
Just how do children perceive the 'olden days'?
I was talking about the colour of two skirts I used to own, long before I had children and my son, who was six, said: "Were things in colour in those days?"
from Patricia, Sheffield
On the art of being evasive...
A father noticed his adopted son playing his Gameboy football game and asked: "Who's playing, then."
His son replied: "Holland and France."
"Oh right," said the father, and then asked; "Who's winning."
"Spain," came the reply.
On the subject of being grown up and having a career...my niece, who is seven, said she wanted to follow in her mum's footsteps...and become an Ann Summers representative!
from Jan Young, Anglesey
I was talking about when I was in school to a friend's children, telling them all about how school has changed since I was there.
They turned round, absolutely serious, and said to me: "Did you have paper to write on, or did you use slates?"
Adoptive mother-to-be (aged 40)
Small girl of about six: "Mum, did God paint the white lines in the middle of the road?"
Reply: "Sort of, but it was probably done by his helpers from the council."
(Overheard on a bus)
"GO BUY YOUR OWN BABY".
J S
From Jennifer, Rotherham
The danger of planting seeds
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