Cute kid stories: January 2007 Archives

I think Sam turned into a teenager this weekend.

I'll admit, I've got a rather sarcastic, blunt sense of humor. But somehow I didn't think she'd be able to replicate that already.

We rented movies Saturday night -- "Lady and the Tramp" for Sammy, "Million Dollar Baby" for my husband and me. As we were leaving the video store, we drove past the elementary school that Sam will attend for kindergarten through fifth grade.

Sam: "Look! There's my school!"

Me: "Yup, that's your school. That's where you'll go when you're bigger."

Sam: "Yeah. I'll learn letters and numbers and then get candy."

Me: "Uh, getting candy isn't really why you go to school. You go to school so you can learn lots of things so that, when you're a grown-up, you'll know what you like to do so that you can go to work and do it every day. Like Daddy -- Daddy likes to build things, so when he goes to work, he builds things. And I like to read and write, so when I go to work, I read and write stories."

Sam (a few seconds of silence, then in a haughty voice): "You just sit in a chair all day."

I almost drove off the road because I was laughing so hard.

Then, while we were watching "Lady and the Tramp," Sam was sitting absolutely rapt. She was narrating the movie to us with about a 10-second delay until about half-way through, when we told her to stop because it was driving us batty. So she sat quietly for a few minutes, then turned to look at me.

Sam: "Dogs don't talk."

Me: "What??"

Sam: "Dogs don't talk. They bark. Why are they talking?"

Unbelievable. I've got a 3-year-old who's a cynic.

What have your kids said that shocks you? What have they surprised you by understanding at a young age?

Here's a sampling of songs with lyrics as sung by Sam:

Under the Sea
"Under da sea
Under da sea
Darlin it's bubba
Rassfaft na na
Under da sea"

Hakuna Matata
"Hakuna Matata
What a wonderfun fray
Hakuna Matata
What a wonderfun fray
Hakuna Matata
What a wonderful fray ..."

Beauty and the Beast
"Tan a soones time
True has it and bees
Bears and eben friends
Den sumblubdy blens
Un-as-peshil-lee
Beauty and da Beast."

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
"Twinkle, twinkle lil star
Hown I wunner whatchoo are
Up and of da whirl so high
Like a diamon in da sky
Twinkle, twinkle lil star
Hown I wunner whatchoo are."

Jingle Bells
"Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle are da wa-ay
Oh what fun in is a ride
Inna one-snors on-pen sa-ay."

Row, Row, Row Your Boat
"Row, row, row your boat
Gently down da street
Mermy, mermy, mermy, mermy
Life is nus a breem."

One of the things we got Sam for Christmas was a dollhouse. It's not large, and it's not fancy.

In fact, it's basically a rancher with a toilet that sounds like it flushes but doesn't, a shower that sounds like it's running but isn't, a washer and dryer that spin as long as nothing's inside them, and a doorbell that ding-dongs.

Sam is infatuated with this thing. She wants to take it everywhere and show it to everyone. And she wants everybody to meet the "family" living there.

Sometimes, the dollhouse is inhabited by My Little Ponies. Sometimes, it's one ballerina Barbie. Once, it was lived in by a troll with green hair and a frog on a magnet. But most of the time, there's a Mommy doll, a Daddy doll, a little girl doll, a toddler girl doll -- and Superman.

Sam sees nothing unusual about this. When the Mommy doll goes to work, she kisses Daddy and the girls and Superman good-bye. When Mommy comes home from work, Daddy goes to work (my husband works day shift, and I work nights, so this is real life to her). And before he leaves, Daddy kisses Mommy and the girls and Superman good-bye.

As far as I know, there is no superhero living in our house. My husband, Damon, comes in very handy sometimes, but he can't fly. And I don't think he owns blue tights or a red cape.

But everything else about Sam's little pretend family is pretty much dead-on. The girls take naps in the bedroom, under their blankies. The mommy uses the potty, and the girls come in to talk to her while she's sitting there. If one of the girls gets a boo-boo, Mommy or Daddy (depending upon which doll's currently at work) kisses it, and she gets a pretend Band-Aid. They eat dinner together, the girls play "outside" and the pretend eggs always get put away in the little refrigerator.

So who's the Superman? If I find out, I'll let you know. In the meantime, I'm gonna see if Sam can get him to do some laundry now and then.

What types of pretending games do you play with your kids? When has their imagination surprised you?

My mother-in-law has an identical twin, Rose. The pair celebrated their 74th birthdays on Dec. 26, which is the day most of the Gulli clan piled into my in-laws' house.

Sam, apparently, did not recall every seeing her Nana and her Aunt Rose in the same space.

When we got there, we were bombarded by about 15 people waiting to kiss us. Because she's a ham, Sam always becomes the center of attention.

After a few minutes, she bounded into the kitchen, threw her arms around Aunt Rose and said, "Hi, Nana!"

The crowd chuckled. Aunt Rose chuckled, but she hugged Sam tightly.

"Sam," I said, "that's not Nana. That's Aunt Rose. She's Nana's sister."

And then Nana walked into the room.

Sam was pretty sure this was a sci-fi movie. She looked back and forth. Then she slid over to Nana.

"Look, Nana, it's you!" she announced, pointing at Rose.

The crowd cracked up. Nana cracked up. Rose cracked up. Sam looked befuddled.

Nana tried explaining to her again. Sam looked at Rose, back at Nana, back at Rose.

Then she declared, "Nana, you're silly." And she walked away.

So for Sam, there were two Nanas at Christmas this year. What she told or showed to one Nana she had to tell or show to the other. During one extended search for Aunt Rose, Sam even looked underneath a bathroom door and called her: "Aunt Rooooo-ose! I got something to show you!"

What's the best thing your child said or did during the holidays?

It hasn't been all tough with Sam lately.

Since she's 3 and a half, she was really able to start grasping the idea of Christmas. When we put up the tree and turned on the lights, she gasped. "Wow, Mommy and Daddy, our tree is BEAUTIFUL!" she said. And then the little drama queen walked over and hugged us.

She also kept saying, "On Christmas, Santa will come home and get presents."

OK, she's still learning exactly how to word things, but I figured she was getting the idea.

We were contemplating taking her to see a mall Santa this year (though she screamed in terror last year), and so I was trying to prep her. "What do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas?"

Sam: "Presents."

Me: "What kind of presents?"

Sam: "With bows."

All right, not quite what I was expecting, but at least she didn't name something that costs, like, $600.

And then I realized just before Christmas that she really wasn't getting the idea.

As I was wrapping presents -- and Sam was helping, of course -- she said, "Santa's gonna LOVE my Christmas tree."

Me (trying to get tape unstuck from my finger): "I'm sure he is."

Sam: "And Santa's gonna LOVE all the presents for him under our tree."

Yeah. She spent three weeks thinking that all the stuff we were buying and wrapping -- and putting bows on -- was for Santa.

What has your child misunderstood that you found funny?

My newest favorite thing Sam does right now is tell knock-knock jokes.

OK, she tries to tell them. It usually goes like this:

Sam (with a huge grin): Knock knock.

Me: Who's there?

Sam: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (scanning the stuff around her) ... table.

Me: Table who?

Sam: (silence for a second, then crazy giggling)

She doesn't know how to make them funny, which I, of course, find hysterical. I can tell her knock-knock jokes back, punchline included -- you know, "Orange you glad I didn't say banana?" -- and she laughs, but you can tell she doesn't really get it.

What I love is watching her sense of humor grow.

She also likes to pretend to be a robot. She holds her arms out to the sides, walks with her legs as straight as possible and says, "Beep beep. I am a robot." It's my job then to use the pretend remote control and push the "stop" and "go" buttons for her.

One day, she was being a robot and she said, "Beep beep. My batteries are dead."

I said, "Well, that's a shame, because if your batteries are dead, then the Sammy robot can't go anymore."

Her reply? "Beep beep. My batteries are fine now."

And she looked me straight in the eye and grinned. She was trying to be funny, trying to joke with me. It was adorable.

What's the cutest thing your kids do right now? What has your child said lately that made you laugh out loud?