Tag Archives: Humor

June 26, 2012 · 8:05 am

The Writing’s on the Wall: My Kids May Never Learn Cursive

For most of third grade, my son begged me to teach him cursive writing. It’s no longer part of the state curriculum and I feel it’s a skill that shouldn’t be tossed aside just yet. Even with the advancement of technology, people should still be able to sign their names on documents, unique signatures that no one else in the world has. And cursive writing just looks so much better, so formal. It should never become a lost art that people have to ask their grandparents how to do.

I told my son I’d teach him the loops and curves of cursive this summer when we had time to sit down and practice and enjoy it.

It’s summer. My daughter, who will enter second grade in the fall, wanted to learn to write her name in cursive too. So we began our lesson the other day with much excitement. I have vivid memories of practicing letters daily in my third-grade class to precision. And because I’m a lefty, I had to turn my paper a different way from everyone else. Since I would be teaching, I could forgo the idiotic paper slant and concentrate on the basic script.

cursive writing, mominthemuddle.com

Let’s write H-E-A-D-A-C-H-E.

The kids watched as I formed a cursive a. Both formed theirs with ease. A few letters later I demonstrated how to join letters to form words. I glanced at my son’s paper, shocked to see that he had already moved on to write the rest of the alphabet without me, using our guide as a reference. Some of them weren’t right. I had lost control over one of my students and I’m not sure where I went wrong. I taught my daughter how to write her name. My son wrote his and I pointed out a few errors. Things were getting tense around the table and he tried again.

“Let me show you how to do an r,” I said. “And an n shouldn’t have a straight line.” I tried to demonstrate.

“I just want to learn to write my name!” he yelled as he tried and tried again, determined not to watch any of my examples.

“Well, that’s what I’m trying to show you. You asked me to teach you.”

He said he was right and then he cried because I wouldn’t help him. I was ambushed by homework flashbacks, a killer mood swing, and possible hormones. The lesson needed to end.

When he showed my husband his cursive writing later, my husband bluntly said, “Your n isn’t right. It shouldn’t have that line. It looks like an m.” My son suppressed a grin and tried not to look at me.

Validation. Sort of.

If for no other reason than the sanity of moms, this is why they should still teach cursive writing in school.

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June 20, 2012 · 10:58 am

The Family Vacation: Why We Do It Every Year

Every summer my family joins my sister’s family for a week at the beach. Cousins can’t wait to see one another and do exactly the same things as last year. Dads man up to see who can find the most sea glass or the coolest treasure. (The taunting started around Christmas.) Us moms just look forward to sitting and doing nothing against the backdrop of a blue sea.

Then we arrive at the beach cottage and reality sets in. The kids run free like the wild horses on one of the islands, and we kind of still have parenting to do. And four kids somehow seems unequal to four parents who desperately want to relax.

Day 1: There was no denying when our troupe of eight arrived at the beach. As my brother-in-law put it, we looked like the Griswolds with our beach paraphernalia strapped to backs and shoulders: chairs, buckets, shovels, umbrellas, coolers, boogie boards, a skim board, towels, a football, and whatever else the kids snuck in their bags. Anyone in our vicinity who wanted peace and quiet was in for a rude awakening with all the shouting, flying sand, and obnoxious laughter.

Day 2: The expensive umbrella we bought for last year’s trip didn’t last through last year’s trip. We bought a cheap one this time. We were driving down the road our second day and fwoomp!everything on the roof had blown off. My sister’s umbrella and boogie boards landed in the middle of a five-lane road. So of course at the beach that day, my umbrella kept falling apart and hers stood strong.

Crappy beach umbrella, mominthemuddle.com

This may account for some of my sunburn.

Day 3: “Red Solo cup. Let’s fill it up. Let’s have a paaar-teeee. Let’s have a paaar-teeee.” Every year, everyone thinks it’s clever to latch onto one song so it gets stuck in everyone’s head the entire week. Four kids singing (the wrong lyrics) off-key day after day became mind numbing. When I heard it on the radio today and realized it was a real song and not some silly words the kids strung together, I nearly fell off my chair.

Day 4: Riding in a van with eight people can be lots of fun. When four of them are kids, it can also not be. At times I’m certain there were eight different conversations going on. I’m not sure how that was possible since I wasn’t part of any of them. My favorite was “Let’s copy Karen” and the kids would repeat everything I said. I hate that game. Then we played the quiet game and my husband gave the winner a quarter. Kids really aren’t so good at that. I got the quarter.

steamed crabs, mominthemuddle.com

No reason to feel crabby at the beach, right?

Day 5: My kids have never been taught proper beach bathroom etiquette. I grew up near a beach. If there weren’t bathrooms, you simply got up, waded into the ocean, and did your thing. My kids think this is disgusting. The same kids who lick their shoes and eat things from their nose. Seriously. Go in the water along with millions of marine wildlife.

Day 6: The kids and their cousins begged us to go go-karting. This activity provides no thrills for me. It’s not NASCAR. It’s not bumper cars. My kids fight over who has to ride with me because I always finish last. I don’t want to shell out $20 to drive my kids around a track so they can complain about it. I do that at home for free.

Day 7: Packing up, the kids got in some last games together. They told one another good-bye. And the adults were already making plans for next year’s trip.

We came home exhausted, filled with sand, and covered in peeling skin. A mountain of laundry sat as tall as the washing machine. The refrigerator held nothing for dinner. Normal life had returned.

But when we looked at the photos, we remembered: that first year when the kids were so small, songs from years past, giant sea glass, running down the dunes, and always getting soaked that first night on the beach. Every year the kids get older and bigger. So do the memories.

That’s why we do it.

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June 7, 2012 · 10:20 am

The Reality of Summer With Kids

It’s the last day of school. My last day of a quiet house. Nothing but the noise of the refrigerator running. Me sitting here writing in peace, watching mysterious white vans drive by and making note of it in my dossier. Me contemplating motherhood, life, and what I’ve mucked up recently.

The last day of school fills everyone with high hopes around here. We gear up for adventure and lazy days. Having nowhere we have to be sounds so utterly amazing, I can’t stand it.

This is how I view the summer ahead:

1. Sitting around the kitchen table doing one of the many crafts I’ve picked out, the kids and I laugh, joke, and bond as we cut, glue, and toss dashes of glitter over our magical creations. They look like something Martha Stewart made herself. Heck, they look better.

sequins ready for crafting

Who wouldn’t want to create with this rainbow of shimmering inspiration?

2. Sitting poolside, I watch my kids frolic and play while I read a book, crunch a snack, or dip my toes in for refreshment. I put my time in for many years of having the kids hang on my every limb. We can enjoy a game of catch or I can relax on a noodle and bob around.

3. Thinking a lazy day is in order, I make plans to cook a delicious snack. Cake pops sound fun. They turn out beautifully. I think we could sell them. We eat them as we lounge in our pajamas, snuggle in beanbags, and watch movies all afternoon.

4. I need to get some work done in the office. The kids quietly play so I can edit or write. When I’m done, I reward them with a trip to the park.

In reality:

1. The kids never want to make the cool crafts I suggest, the ones I’ve been clipping from magazines for years. They have “better” ideas. They don’t like my suggestions on how to embellish them. In the end, they look like something Martha Stewart’s dogs made. After the seemingly ten hours it takes me to set up, it takes my kids 3.4 minutes to slap some glue on their craft and say, “I’m done. Can we go play?” Then it takes another ten hours for me to scrape the glue off the chairs and get every speck of glitter off the floor.

sequin collage

I give him five minutes, tops. A piece of art that will never be complete.

2. The minute I sit in a lounge chair, the kids ask me every five minutes when I’m getting in the pool. The minute I get near the water, the kids still hang on my limbs. At least once a season I see a kid puke something into the pool and his mother swish it out. That kind of ruins the rest of it for me. Thanks, rule-breaking mother.

3. The recipe takes way more time than I imagine. The kids fight over whose turn it is for each step. Having the kids help makes the process go twenty times longer than it should. And when it’s all over, the kids don’t even like them. “Can we have popcorn?” “When can we start the movie?”

4. The moment I get on the computer, the kids sit in the office chair behind me and start to wrestle. Someone gets hurt. I send them upstairs. They go upstairs and continue to fight. I still haven’t gotten any work done. I send them to their rooms. Doors slam. I am mad. Tears. Yelling. I haven’t managed to get any paying work done, but I probably got a post out of it.

Summer: The reality is, I look forward to it every year and I still miss it when it’s gone.

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June 5, 2012 · 8:59 am

I Volunteer

For the past four years, I have volunteered weekly in my kids’ classrooms. I usually only spend an hour or two there but I am exhausted when I leave. I can’t imagine what it feels like to be a teacher.

This year seems to be my last year of weekly classroom help. Second-grade teachers don’t need parents like I need them. Next year I’ll have to find other classes to help in or other ways. I’ll miss the routine.

When helping in my daughter’s first-grade class this year, groups of kids rotated every fifteen minutes. I got four to six kids at a time. They rolled on a floor covered in chunks of dirt from their shoes. They fought over who was supposed to have what book. They wrestled, took off their shoes, talked, needed pencils sharpened, sucked up strings of snot that hung to their chins, told me they didn’t need a tissue, used pencils as Wolverine claws, sang, did a little work, went to the bathroom for fifteen minutes, ate boogers or scabs, tattled, and argued over how they would pair up to play a game.

I refereed, told the kids what books they were supposed to have, told them wrestling moves were not part of their assignment, pointed out the tissue box, sharpened pencils, told them to do work, helped them read words, told them to stop singing and talking, told them to get out from under my chair, told them that pencils are for writing, listened to stories about their cat, dog, or baby brother, and said “Good job.” Then the next group came and the cycle repeated.

Every class I’ve helped in has been different. Some groups have been more challenging than others, but I did it every year because I simply love it.

English: This is one of the kindergarten rooms...

I’ve enjoyed every minute in the classroom. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I started volunteering when my son was in kindergarten as a way to adjust to long days without him. My son rarely cracked a smile when he saw me, much less said hello. But I quickly loved helping the other kids read sight words, figure out an addition problem, or just giving them attention.

I worked with kids who had trouble learning their ABCs and sight words. The teacher had me quiz them on sight words. They’d squirm. They’d all but panic. I wasn’t allowed to help them. I knew they hated it. I hated it. But I’d say nice job or find a way to compliment them during class.

Those kids who had the hardest time hardly ever talked to me. I couldn’t blame them. At the end of the year, those were the kids who came up and squeezed me around my waist on my last day. No words. Just a surprise, quick hug. I left with a lump in my throat. I knew it was worth it.

In college, I volunteered in a pre-kindergarten classroom. The teacher told me that some of the kids didn’t get much attention at home. I could tell. They all wanted to show me everything they could do. They fought over who would hold my hand. I learned more in that classroom than I did in many of my college courses, and I’ve never forgotten those lessons.

I volunteer because I know what my kids get at home every day, but I don’t know what another kid’s home life is like. Even though I had loving parents as a kid, it was always nice when someone else took an interest in me. When someone other than your parent takes notice, you take notice in yourself. Sometimes all it takes is a positive comment. “You did a great job reading today.” “Wow, look at you reading those big words.” “I’m proud of you.”

You just never know. So you do it for all of them.

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June 1, 2012 · 9:17 am

My Second Chance at the First-Grade Play

My daughter had her first-grade play last night. After what felt like a disaster at my son’s first-grade play, I wanted to make sure this one went smoothly. I took what I learned from my son’s play to make sure my daughter’s was a success…for me.

As the parent of a second child, I sometimes feel mine gets gypped. When all of those first experiences happen with your first child, you run through every extreme of emotions in a way you never thought possible. That first child that you waited forever for? All eyes were on him. The first day of kindergarten? Two weeks worth of tears finally cleared up my battered heart.

When my second child was born, I was breathless. She was a beauty. But I couldn’t help but be concerned about how my son would react. Her first day of kindergarten? Not a tear. I knew what to expect and I held it together. I could be excited with her.

As a second child myself, I never really felt gypped. This gives me hope.

But there are some ways that being the second child is a good thing. Like when I screw up something with my son, I make sure I nail it for my daughter. It’s like having a second chance at my parenting shortcomings.

When my son had his first-grade play two years ago, his teacher instructed us to arrive at 6:30. We did. Everyone and their grandmother and aunt, uncle, and cousin already had a seat in the school’s tiny cafetorium. We had to sit in the very back. During my son’s first, and I’m quite certain last, square-dance performance, I couldn’t see a thing. I even stood up. My daughter kept repeating, “I can’t see.” I couldn’t either. I could only tell my son later what a great job he did, and I couldn’t even be sure.

It had been a miserable evening for me. A late arrival. I had busted the heel of both shoes the moment we arrived and left a trail of rubber crumbs everywhere I went. I feared the entire heel would fall off in one big chunk and walking took extreme caution. I couldn’t see my son in the performance he had talked about for weeks. I fought a huge lump in my throat.

My saving grace was that someone recorded the play and gave me a copy a few weeks later. I never told my son that was the first time I was seeing his performance.

When my daughter performed, I was not going to allow a repeat. We would arrive an hour early for seats up front if we had to. And we did. Third row. We made faces at our daughter. I recorded her speaking part between the heads of the people in front of me. I got to see her every move, every toothless grin.

Finally, I nailed it. And I even wore shoes that didn’t crumble.

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May 30, 2012 · 9:58 am

Cursed by Bad Words

My son has always been obsessed with words, learning to spell states and football players’ names when he became bored with his spelling words. He currently keeps a list of city names from our state and names of characters from books he reads. And I believe he also has a running list of all the cuss words he knows.

“The H one, the D one, the S, the A,” he says. “I just can’t figure out what the I one is.”

“The I one?” I think as I rack my brain. “What in the world is the I word?”

Years ago, the fact that my kid knew any cuss words in third grade would have bothered me a great deal. I would have felt irresponsible, guilty. But I realize it’s a natural, curious part of growing up. So it’s a little earlier than I would have liked, but I don’t think it’s any earlier than the boys I grew up with.

Though to him learning a new word is like cracking a code into some secret adult society, just knowing satisfies him. He doesn’t use them except, I’m sure, between giggles and whispers with his closest friends as they try to figure out life as third graders. He tells me his new words, but he protects his little sister.

Now that he’s nine, he’s at an age where it’s getting harder to decide where the boundaries are. This doesn’t mean we’re encouraging our son to swear. It means we’re deciding whether our son can possibly be mature enough to handle knowing bad things and not using them, using his own good judgment.

When he was invited to see The Avengers recently, at first I firmly put my foot down. No PG-13 movies. But it’s the summer blockbuster hit everyone and their five-year-old is raving about. After researching the movie and learning the swear words in it, I really didn’t want him to go. I polled a few people whose opinions I trust. One planned to take her seven-year-old. Hmm. Was I being too tough on my son?

I’ve always tried to shelter him from lewd language but when he’s out on his own, it’s out of my control.

When I read to him, I skip over anything I deem unfit. Several months ago, when I mentioned J.K. Rowling has an adult book coming out this year, he wanted to know why he couldn’t read it.

“Does it have cuss words in it? I bet it does if it’s for adults.”

“There are cuss words in Harry Potter,” I told him, surprised he hadn’t noticed during his reading. I even slipped and read damn one night in the throes of a heated dialogue.

“Is it the J one? Because I don’t know what that one means,” he said.

children's source for bad words, muddledmom

The children’s dictionary. A wonderful reference for naughty words, including the J one.

My husband so rarely gets to witness these conversations. “The J one?” he said. “I don’t even want to know what that one is.”

My son whispered into my husband’s ear, and I was thrilled to not have to explain what a word means. “That’s a donkey.”

“A donkey?” my son said. Bubble burst. The meanings really take the fun out of knowing a bad word.

“Well, I know it doesn’t have the B one,” my son continued. “That’s written on the back of the stall in the fifth-grade boys’ bathroom.”

I remember this struggle when I was a kid. I had learned a few choice words, possibly from my dad. In fourth grade he was nagging me about leaving my bike in the rain and in my retort, I couldn’t remember which word to use. “Well how the hell was I supposed to know?” Innocent mistake, though I’m not sure heck would have really been any better.

We’ve had our own incidents but not as bad as I’d expect, especially for a boy who collects bad words like pirate treasure. I found something in his backpack with bad words written on it. His friend gave him a quarter to write them. I was disappointed that he was stupid enough to do what his friend said. We had a long talk about those words, the principal, and the phrase, “If your friend told you to jump off a cliff…”

I want my kids to understand words, to understand that they can have more than one meaning, that they can hurt, that they can be nasty, and that they can be effective.

The word I do worry about? It’s an I word: ignorance. I won’t tolerate any words that deal with that.

And the movie? We let him see it. He was so enthralled by the action, he didn’t notice any bad words. I worried for nothing.

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May 22, 2012 · 9:39 am

The Saga of a Sleepless Son

Most mornings I wake to the sound of my husband tiptoeing off to the shower. I still have fifteen minutes until I need to help get the kids ready for school. It’s quiet. Peaceful. I can unstick the sleep gobs that glue my tired eyes closed in my own time.

But lately, my nine-year-old son shatters those precious moments. He climbs in bed with me at 6:30 and begins chirping away like a baby bird. “Mom, why is it so light out?” “Mom, do you think we’ll have soccer practice tonight?” “Mom, did the Flyers win?” “Mom, I found out what phlegm means in my Harry Potter book and it’s not what you said.”

His early mornings mean one of two things: he’s either excited or worried. And this phase won’t end until his mind is put at ease.

This is not how I like to wake up in the morning, and it brings back memories, evil memories of days that always began way too early after nights with many interruptions.

He’s never been much of a sleeper. I didn’t know kids even came that way.

The most common advice I got before having my son was, “Sleep when the baby sleeps.” Sure, I thought. I will let the house be messy. Dishes can sit in the sink. Laundry doesn’t need to be folded right away. And babies sleep so much anyway, I’ll be able to sleep and still get those things done, right?

I was a stupid new mother.

My son slept. Only when we held him. But we had to bounce him. And we could only do that while standing. God forbid we try to sit down. Those first few weeks with him were torture and I sat in bleary-eyed delirium during my shifts with him in the wee hours of the night wondering what the hell I had done to deserve such punishment. When I did sleep, I’d dream that I was holding him and wake in a sweaty panic that I had dropped him.

Sleep through the night at three months? That was the first parenting myth I believed, a mere dream that sparked, fizzled, and smoked for over a year. Just when my husband and I thought we had nailed it, something else always put a kink in our slumber: teething, a cold, a change in temperature, a fly on the wall, a piece of lint, who freaking knew.

When he was a toddler and threw his babies out of the crib in the middle of the night, it was a top-secret mission to return them to him without being seen. I would army-crawl in through a sea of stuffed animals, toss the missing baby into the crib, and back out of there at top speed. If my son popped his head up, panicked thoughts raced through my mind as I lie splayed on his floor. “I’ve been spotted. Get out. Abort the mission! Abort the mission!” If I was too far in, my only choice was to lie still and try to blend in with the stuffed animals or hide half under the crib. Sometimes I was stuck there for what seemed like hours until he ducked his head down again.

Blue Oliver had a rattle. Don’t ever give your child a baby that rattles. Just don’t.

I’d get tired of those G.I. Joe missions late at night, and I wasn’t into playing peek-a-boo no matter how cute he was.

Once my son got into a regular bed, we’d wake to see him run past our room. My husband found him helping himself to a midnight snack from the fridge.

For an eternal stretch, it seemed like my husband slept on my son’s floor more than he slept in our bed. It was better than constantly being poked in the face and getting up half the night.

It took seven years for my son to let us sleep in peace, for him to realize that just because he was awake didn’t mean he had to wake up the rest of us. He finally learned that he could pick up a book and read while we slept in…until 7.

But now, every time he goes through one of his phases of early mornings, my brain starts ticking. I hear the thud of his feet hit the floor when it’s still dark out. Is it the birds chirping? An upcoming test at school? Excitement over a visit from his grandparent? Or something more? Troubled over something going on at school? After a few days, I figure it out. I don’t like for my son to be worried. I even lose a little sleep over it.

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May 17, 2012 · 9:14 am

What Does a Crazy Rash Diagnosis Have to Do With Marriage?

Balance. It’s always been the strength in my marriage. While I quietly freak out with worry that my children need to be rushed to the emergency room, my husband calmly looks up from his reading fighting an eye roll and says, “Karen, it’s fine.”

While I submit my children to constant examination, poking, prodding, and “let me see it just one more time,” my husband checks out the Phillies’ score.

When I snuck away to Google a bull’s-eye rash that mysteriously appeared on my son recently, my husband calmly explained that it was a flare-up of eczema.

As I diagnosed my child with Lyme disease, panicked, and then came back down to earth with the realization that it could just be a spider bite or…or, well, nothing, my husband read a book.

I’m not trying to paint a picture of a lazy, clueless husband. There have been times when he’s been panicked and I’ve been the calm one. But between us, one of us manages to always be sane. One of us has to be rational. We balance each other out.

Before I called the doctor and committed to adding $100 to our huge deductible, I mulled over the situation. It could have been nothing. But it looked like something. I didn’t know what it was. I could call a nurse friend I know. Sure, she was an OB/gyn nurse. I could run my child through the streets and knock on doors to see if anyone had seen anything like this rash. Surely they would see the crazy in my eyes.

After exhaustive comparisons to rash photos on the Internet, I called the doctor’s office. After one hundred questions, of course the nurse told me to bring my child in. After I got my children out of school early. After I endured ten straight minutes of my son telling my daughter to be quiet because he couldn’t read with her talking. After the torture of being cooped up in that tiny eight-by-eight room, the doctor finally came in.

The doctor examined the rash site. It was not a fungus caused by ringworm. It was not Lyme disease. Looked a bit like, yeah, eczema.

I am pretty good about listening to the voice of reason. I freak myself out a lot. About half the time I can talk myself out of my nonsense. The other 49 percent of the time, my husband does. The other tiny percent? Well, the doctor gets a good chuckle.

“Glad you took him for peace of mind,” my husband said.

Balance. And no I told you so’s. Even though he did.

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May 15, 2012 · 3:44 pm

Hide-and-Seek: You’ll Have to Come Find Me

We’re playing hide-and-seek today. But I’ll tell you where I’m hiding. I’m guest posting over at Momma Be Thy Name. Go on over and read what on earth heart attacks, leg cramps, and boobs have to do with playing hide-and-seek with my family. Really, do you have to ask? You guys should know me by now. Check out Momma Be Thy Name if you’ve never been. She’s a mom to one-year-old twins and a toddler. She’s smart and sassy. And hey, she’s having me over for a play date!

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May 8, 2012 · 9:09 pm

My Funny Things File

When my kids started talking, I diligently kept a list of the words they said and the date they said them. I proudly added new ones to their baby books even though it sounded like mumbo-jumbo to anyone outside our home. To us new parents, the words meant we were finally on that road to real communication with our children. Instead of cries and shrieks, our son could say, “Ah-noo,” and we knew he meant football. He had his own language, but we cracked the code and bought into the cuteness.

Our daughter could say, “upsididdy down” and we knew what direction she meant. If she asked for “lemonlade,” by golly, shouldn’t she have some?

As the kids got older though, real words replaced the cuteness. But some funny stuff started to come out of their mouths. In my busy day of folding laundry, wiping rears, and trying to steal a nap, I didn’t have the time to write down whole conversations in the kids’ baby books. In the moment, I began quickly typing up the funny stuff my kids said and hence, a funny list was born. I still keep this list on my computer and add to it when I overhear a hysterical conversation or my kids make me choke on my Sun Chips. And from time to time, my husband and I still read it when we need a laugh.

This is the part of the list I’m willing to share:

1. My husband asked my son, age 4, “What do you want to know about girls?”

My son didn’t miss this opportunity. He lifted his arms to his chest and shouted, “BOOBIES!”

2. My son, 4, to my daughter, 2: “Hey, say this: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America….” He told her the whole thing and then said, “If you can say that, I will play with you forever.”

My daughter’s response: “Weeble wobble.”

Weeble Wobbles

Weeble wobble, an answer for anything. (Photo credit: m kasahara)

3. My son, 4, from the backseat: “Mommy, can penises undo seatbelts?”

4. Playing hide-and-seek with my son and his Spider-Man toys, I asked him who was counting. He answered, “I said Venom was, but you didn’t listen.” Ouch.

5. I had only been out of the room a minute. When I returned, my son, 5, had a red line all the way around his mouth like a clown. I asked him what he did to his face. He said, “I wanted a beard.” I told him I was going to have to scrub it off and that I would take his markers away if he did it again. He said, “How many?”

“All of them,” I said.

He thought about it and said, “I’m going to hide them before you do that.”

6. After my son, almost 6, was super bad one day, my husband had a little talk with him. My son said, “I’ll be good till Christmas and after my birthday, then I’ll be bad again.”

7. My husband left for work one day with a box of granola bars. My daughter, 4, said, “Are you the snack bringer?”

8. My daughter had a friend over one day and the kids were eating a snack. The little girl exclaimed, “I’m going to marry a very nice man one day.” Without missing a beat, my son said, “I hope it’s not me.”

9. After crawling in bed with me one morning, my daughter, 4, asked, “Momma?”

“What?” I moaned, on my back still half asleep.

“Where did you boobies go?”

That woke me up fast.

10. Overheard while the kids were roughhousing…

My son, 6: “Ow! You’re smooshing my pee-nus!”

My daughter, 4: “Now you’re a girl.”

Without this list, I would have forgotten most of these moments. And though it’s not a fancy baby book, those lines of typed words bring more smiles than the date of a first tooth.

What funny things have your kids said?

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