Navigating what a child says is sometimes like wandering through a corn maze after dark. It’s a little spooky and easy to mistake a corner for a dead end. Or vice versa.
Here are a few examples. This is strictly a no-name and sometimes changed-gender report for protection (mine, so I don’t get hammered by an adult child. They don’t always think these memories are as noteworthy as I do.)
I was showing a two-year-old boy around our barn. We had some black-and-white kittens tumbling around bales of hay.
“What do you call those?” I said, pointing at the kittens. I wanted to teach the difference between cat and kitten.
He stared. “Penguins?”
Another time, I was fixing dinner for the family when one of our kids wandered into the kitchen.
“What’s that?” he asked, studying the pan on the stove.
“Hamburger patties.”
He tilted his head. “Can I call it sook?”
Yep, he ate sook for supper.
On a similar note, the same kid helped me bake muffins one day. I used a whisk to mix the ingredients, and soon the batter stiffened. He lifted the whisk with the flour and sugar and oil clumped onto it.
“Look, I have a lunk!”
He ate quite a few lunks after they baked.
Another day I took a little one shopping at the local drugstore. She carried five pennies into the store and laid them on a shelf for some unknown reason. After we left the store, she discovered her loss. Of course, we had to backtrack in search of her loot. We searched up and down aisles, especially shelves at five-year-old height, but could only find four pennies.
I finally laid the law down. “We need to go.”
Her shoulders slumped as she shuffled toward the door. “I’m going to miss that penny.”
There was the child who came to her mother with her head hanging low. Kids never take disappointment lightly. She wore her sadness like a wet raincoat. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
Uh-oh. Wouldn’t you imagine broken lamps or flour scattered across the kitchen? Maybe the dog lost in a sea of bubbles in the bathtub?
“I’m sorry, Mom, but I can’t fly.”
How did she figure that out? It’s better not to ask.
Then there was this discussion over scrambled eggs at the breakfast table. Fork in one hand, my son asked, “Do you know what a Gurgler is?”
I like to encourage investigation, but I had to admit my ignorance.
“They’re a machine that sucks down people and things,” said the young one.
“Yuck,” I said.
“I hate to tell you this, but if you meet one, you’ll die.”
“Oh, no!”
“But it’s OK because they live on the other side of the world.”
“Good.”
“Mom,” he said. “They’re on the movies.” He rolled his eyes while I wondered what movies he’d been watching.
Then came the day when the same kid rushed into the kitchen, his arms flailing and his face red and hot. “Mom! Betsy says I’ll get wigworms if I drink my potty!”
Um, I can’t even unpack that statement. What would you say? I said, “Then don’t.”
