I have a confession to make: the reason we decided to have a baby is so our lives can be a walking game of Mad Libs, which is possibly the best game ever. No, really. I will sacrifice myself to dirty diapers, $8,000 braces, and parent/teacher conferences if, every so often, my child just walks into the room and describes her new set of (adjective) blocks as making her feel like (gerund) (adverb) whenever she (verb).
Source: LA Times
Par example:
The Set-Up: My brother was six years old, and for probably the fourth time in his life he was making a trip to the ER for a gash/infection/broken extremity. The doctor entered the consulting room where Trevor and my dad were waiting to see him. The doctor was of Middle Eastern descent and wearing a Kelly green blazer.
My Brother’s Response: Trevor looks straight at the doctor and asks him, “Do you speak Irish?” What makes it best is that he said this in a highland twang.
Y’know, so the maybe-Irish doctor could understand him were he not yet acquainted with a southern American accent.
***
The Set-Up: I once worked with a guy whose girlfriend was a first grade teacher. On the first day of school, the teacher asked the students to draw a picture of what they wanted to learn to do that year. One child was hoarding all the gray crayons, so the teacher came over to investigate the situation.
A Student’s Response: When she asked him what he wanted to learn to do that year, he looked straight at her and said, “I want to learn to cut metal.”
Well, YEAH. Me too, come to think of it.
***
The Set-Up: The year was 2003 and newly-coupled B and I had just seen The Lion King Broadway musical with my family. It was a-ma-zing. We were struck with how well-staged and moving it was, and based on the comments of other theater-goers who filed out of the theater with us, they did too. In the crush of the crowd, we were caught behind a dad and his little boys, probably ages three and four. The dad was pumping them for information on how much they loved the show.
The Boys’ Responses: The three year old glowed, as the dad clearly wanted. The four year old?
“I have earwaxes in my ear.”
NICE.
***
The Set-Up: B was teaching social studies to a classful of first graders in Korea at our English academy. The text was an American social studies book and included a brief explanation of slavery in the US. B did his best to give the kids a rated-G version of this pretty sensitive topic that these kids could have very well never had any exposure to before. He explained that slaves were people who worked in the houses or farms of other people for no money, and who often lived in those homes as well.
One Student’s Response: “Oh yes! My mom is thinking about getting one of those!”
We think that maybe the girl’s mom was looking for an English-speaking au pair.
But still.
***
And the creme de la creme:
The Set-Up: 2000 was the year that brought the world my awesome cousin Maddie. She was the most awesome baby EVER. I am crossing my fingers that Bebe takes after her. But I digress.
So, Maddie couldn’t’ve been more than a few months old when one day my mom, Trevor, and I went over to my Aunt Jaye’s house for an afternoon visit. We were all sitting in the living room watching Miss Maddie coo and be generally adorable when Trevor sneezed.
Maddie’s Response: This tiny little thing said, “Gesundheit!” I swear on all that is holy that she did.
We all heard it.
All our jaws dropped. We looked at each other to confirm what we had just heard. The blank, astounded expressions on our faces affirmed that we had just heard a German word pass through the lips of this tiny person.
And of course Maddie then went back to blowing spit bubbles.
The Waiting 
Thanks for giving me a hearty laugh to start the day! I think the Trevor story is totally the best :)
You’re welcome. I couldn’t sleep AT ALL last night and basically wrote this whole thing in my head from 3-4 AM. Thinking about Trev in that situation made me giggle in bed and I was afraid I would wake B.
Funny! I love the droll response of the earwax boy. : )
I know! And the thing is, those tickets weren’t cheap so I bet the dad felt like he had kind of squandered away $65.
I had the exact same thought! Along with him thinking, “My sperm created you?”
Hahaha Nice!
I remember little niece Leslie telling her mom she wanted to be a cookie. She liked their clothes????????? Actually, she wanted to be a Girl Scout Brownie. So cute!
Didn’t she also want to make a sweater out of the dog’s hair that had fallen off? Love it :)
No, that was the older niece. :)
Thanks for the laugh! Can’t wait until mine can talk!
I know! I think we’ll be talking for ours until she starts to babble.
Kid speak can be so funny, sometimes just because of the word choices. The Maddie story is perfect. When Laura talks about downloads or light projecting, I do a double-take. Word Girl and Martha Speaks are taking her 5 year old vocabulary into adult land.
I like those shows! And yes I am not yet a parent but I am very familiar with them. Martha Speaks actually cracks me up.
Priceless!! Our #1 used to complain of having ear-wack in an ear (singular; wacks (wax) being plural). Thoroughly enjoyed these. Bebe will most likely inherit the early speech gene!
Ear wack! I think that’s what happened to Beethoven. Well, at least #1 was thinking about plurals/singulars.
Love it! Kid language is awesome.
The other night over the dinner table we were talking to Cody, who is in Kindergarten and after trying the school hot lunch twice refuses to try it again saying he likes the lunches I pack better (this make me wildly happy!) We then asked Carter, who is still a year away from Kindergarten, if he will want hot lunch someday and he kinda freaked out. He told us he would HATE hot lunch, but would maybe try warm lunch if they had it. LOL! He has alway been very temperature sensitive from food to bath water so it should not have surprised me that he said this but I still find it to be so funny.
That is too hilarious! I don’t blame him! :) I would much rather have warm lunch that hot lunch! He was just worried about burning the roof of his mouth. Can’t blame him for that.
Very funny and enjoyable!
Thank you and welcome!
What about the time a family was at the beach and went to a PUTT PUTT Park!!!! What were they thinking? The temperature and humidity were ridiculous.
Someone named Emily was having a wonderful time. However, the mom. dad, and baby brother were about to have heat stokes. (Along with the guest grandmother.) Dad said, “Emily, let’s skip the next hole.” And guess what The Emily did……She ‘skipped’ around the next Putt Putt hole. Loved it.
LOL! I kind of wanted to include that in this post but then it would be like “LOOK AT ME I AM THE CUTEST CHILD EVER!!!!” Because, y’know, I WAS :) But thanks for proving what we all already knew.
[…] The Waiting […]
Oh my! Your little one will give you many many examples such as the above :)
I know. We can’t wait! Even tho she only makes tiny little kitten noses now, we still enjoy them immensely :)