From Pintrest
She heard noises coming from her daughter’s room. A heated conversation, animated chattering.
She listened at the door. Changed tone, one voice, empathetic discussion. She peeked–no toys involved, no dolls. Just her four year old sitting on the bed, talking earnestly.
“Who are you talking to?” she asked.
“Me.”
“How come you’re talking to yourself?”
A surprised look, a ‘duh’ voice: “But Mommy! Because I understand me!”
Sharing this You Tube video for cuteness sake … and for the amazing little people kids are, and their language abilities, intonation, explanation, and social skills, even at that age.
She has it all figured out (though I do wonder if that mirror really did change hands come Mother’s Day …).
As for the title of the video–I disagree. I think you CAN very much trust a two-year-old! You can trust them to tell it like it is! Enjoy!
“My grandpa is very old,” the boy told me in a hushed tone.
“He is?” I smiled.
“Yeah, he even lived when it was no iPhone and no TV!” he announced. “That’s even very old.”
“I guess so,” I noted, keeping to myself the fact that I, too, lived well before there were iPhones (and when there were only black-and-white TVs).
“I think maybe they had a little iPhone, though,” the boy reconsidered, disbelieving a possible reality without the device. “Because they taked pictures … like with iPhone camera. My grandpa showed me a picture from when they had a zoo in the middle of New York.”
“The Central Park Zoo?” I offer.
“No!” the admonishing tone lets me know I am completely off track. “We still have that zoo. Its not from old times. It is there now even. I mean a zoo in the middle middle middle of New York. In the middle of the street Empire building. With wild animals and elephants.”
“Maybe you are thinking of the Museum of Natural History?” I tried.
“You not listening,” he shook his head at me, exasperated at my inability to follow such a simple narrative. “I telling you and you’re not listening. They had a zoo in the middle of the middle of the street. Zebras and things. Walking around. Maybe it was when the dinosaurs still lived …” he mused.
I looked helplessly at the mother, who was doing all she could to keep a straight face. This little guy did like tall tales, and I was wondering if this story was a combination of dream, stories, and wishful thinking. His mother’s levity confused me further.
“I’m sorry,” she giggled. “He did the same to me … You see, what happened was that my dad showed him some photos of old New York in a book and they came across this photo of … well … here, you’ll see …” She pulled out her phone (yes, an iPhone) and flipped through some apps before turning the screen so I could see.
“Told ya!” the boy trumpeted. “When it was a long time ago and my grandpa was still a little old they had a zoo in the middle of the middle of the street Empire Building! See?!”
NYC 1968 Circus arriving in town, 33rd Street
A little girl of preschool age sits with her mom in session. She substitutes some sounds and tends to delete the ends of words, saying things like: “pe” instead of ‘pen’, “la” instead of ‘laugh’, “ha” instead of ‘hat’, “may” instead of “make”, “wabee” instead of ‘rabbit.’ Her speech can be difficult to understand, which is why she sees me for speech therapy.
Articulation aside, this girl’s language and expressive skills are up to par, and her infectiously delicious personality keeps us in stitches half the time.
We’re practicing saying word-endings by “discovering” (uncovering) and naming picture cards: “pig”, “hug”, “map”, “cat”, “man” … She pauses on the picture of the man. He is dressed in a suit and tie.
She’s been to a wedding recently as a flower girl to the bride–her mom’s cousin–and has been fascinated with weddings since. White dresses, tutus, flowing gowns, flowers, princess-wear… It enchants her to no end and she ‘plays bride’ with her dolls, marches with imaginary flowers down makeshift aisles.
“Mommy,” she pipes, pointing at the picture of the suit-clad man. “Is he getting married?” (“ee he geti mawee?”… it helps to know what she is referring to, if one is to understand …).
“Maybe,” The mother smiles.
“I want to get married, too,” the child demands.
“When you grow up you can. Who will you marry?” Mom can’t resist.
“Daddy.”
“Oh, but I already married Daddy, Sweetie. You’ll have to marry someone else.”
Storm clouds gather on the little girl’s face. “That’s not fair!” She states, hands on hips for emphasis. “You already had your turn. You have to share! It’s my turn to marry Daddy now!”
I heard them arguing all the way up the stairs. The mom sounded consoling but confused. The little boy sounded angry, hurt.
“Why you lie?” he demanded.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she countered, frustrated.
“You not suppose to lie!”
“I didn’t … oh, just drop it, will you?”
“Drop what?”
“Nothing, okay. Just climb up, we’re late already …”
Two frowning faces, one a smaller version of the other showed up at my door. The little guy took one look at his mother, letting her know that he was not done with this discussion, and announced to me: “My mommy lied!”
She shook her head, sighed.
“Let’s go in and sit down and you’ll tell me about it,” I suggested.
The story unfolded: there was a party planned. A surprise birthday party for the dad, and both the boy and his older sister were in on the plans. All very exciting.
“Actually, initially I didn’t want David to know,” the mother interjected, “I worried that he would not be able to keep it secret … but he found out, and of course he went right ahead and told my husband …”
Little David gave her a withering look. “I didn’t mean to, it slip out,” he noted, vindicated by fate. He then turned to me, righteously riled, “and anyway, my mommy lied!”
“What did I lie about? What did I say?” the mother was clearly tired of this back and forth. She looked at me, “he’s been at it since we left the house. I didn’t lie to him about anything. It’s been really ridiculous.”
“You say I spilling things and I didn’t! I was careful!”
“What did your mom say you spilled, David?” I asked, slightly amused by the exchange and the boy’s insistence, and by a suspicion that was already forming in my mind …
“Beads. She say I spill the beads. I didn’t!”
“The BEANS,” the mother corrected.
“I don’t even LIKE beans,” he snapped and rolled his eyes, and I struggled to keep a straight face.
“It’s an expression, David. To spill the beans, means to tell a secret … maybe your mom was saying that about you telling your dad about the birthday party?”
The little boy glared at me suspiciously–one never knows when adults gang up to take another adult’s side–then looked back and forth from his mom’s vigorous nodding to me. I smiled.
“But why she lie?” his voice was hesitant now. He knew that there was something he had missed.
“She didn’t lie. She used an expression. Remember when we were talking about it ‘raining cats and dogs’ when it actually meant that it was raining really hard? How it was a silly way to say that it was raining hard but it did not mean that dogs and cats were REALLY raining on us? How ‘raining cats and dogs’ is an expression for strong rain?”
A nod.
“Or when we talked about ‘giving a hand’ meaning helping someone, and how a ‘couch potato’ is someone who sits around too much watching TV and doesn’t go outside and play and move around?”
Another nod then an eyebrow started going up. A dawning. “Like ‘heart of gold’ thing being nice?”
“Exactly!”
“Oh,” he pondered. Then his lip curled up in distaste. “But why spill beans? Can’t I spill something else? I HATE beans!”
A boy, age 4, stating proudly: “When I grow up I’m going to be just like my daddy. I’m going to put ties on by my whole self and a suit and I’m going to have a (sic) iPad and two iPhones even three and be busy and go to work everyday …”
He pauses, and a little frown climbs up his young forehead … He takes a breath, and continues, a little less enthusiastically: “yeah, I’m going to go to work …”
He pauses again, reconsiders. Looks up at me, a tad concerned. “Can grownups go to work and … um … play?”
Kids have been known to say the most amazing things. They can come up with stuff that leaves jaws hanging. Make connections we did not see coming. Expose language ambiguities that we no longer hear, and make expressions a never ending study in explaining why we did not mean the words we said even though we very much did mean what we said …
Kids can also give the most hilariously brilliant unexpected answers.
Here is a compilation of answers from 25 kids whose responses on tests, quizzes, assignments and schoolwork prove that they are awfully literal, completely out to lunch on what’s inquired about, totally impish, wholesale Smart-Alec’ish, or a combination of the above …
Read more and enjoy: http://www.viralnova.com/awesome-kid-answers/#VGpIS22CscTiyxSg.99
Thank you ViralNova.com for this delightful collection!
Just for fun, now that the weather is working on being presentable and the outdoors will call with sun and blue sky: a little look on how people got going in such times gone by.
Here is the family circa 1910 and out for a ride… (she with ‘side-saddle’ seat, of course, lest propriety be harmed …)–and then there’s the ‘baby carrier’ all snug as bug in a rug in the back … (complete with pergola to keep out the sun but not much in the way of keeping the babe in if the bike goes down …)
Prefer to go ‘natural’? There’s an option for that … Just not sure you will get very far or too fast before you’re in the dust …
Think a bike is too risky and skirts may snag up to reveal an ankle or (gasp) a well stockinged calf? No worries–there’s technology to harness, 1916 a cutting edge craft.
Hail a cab? Not a problem. London upped its own game, and in 1907, taxies happily came.
Want to live on the road? Sure–that’s swell. Mobil home to the rescue, chimney and awning as well.
Fast forward a bit. It’s the 1950 and the family’s grown … There are three now to take along … (okay, it is not the same family, but the concept is shown …). Big improvement from high-wheels, better balance on bikes and no more side-saddle for mom (Victorians would blanch at the thighs on display, but how they paddled one legged puzzles me to this day …).
So … by bike (or an ostrich?), by scooter or bus, by taxi or stroller or RV or a hike–get your gear up and ready and plan some fun routes: there’s a world worth exploring, and many venues to use …
Kids are wizards of pointing out minutia of life that can seem quite arbitrary to us. They note things we missed completely. They seem to ‘insist’ on irrelevant details like the way the plate is organized, who got to open the refrigerator this time, or what touches what. Everything takes far LONGER to do with a little one around …
In good part it may well be because their life moves slower. Time is yet to be shackled onto watches and the ticking of a schedule. They pause mid-sleeve, pondering the way light filters through the cloth, unconcerned with how rushed the morning is. They stare in wonder at a pigeon when the light changed and it is time to cross the street. They have an urgent question or need just when you finally sat down to eat.
And they notice. Everything.
They collect each leaf and pebble. There is no such thing in their vocabulary as a “quick run to the store and back” … not when there’s a big exciting world out there. There is endlessness to explore: Cracks in the pavement. Bits of paper flown by winds. Funny people. Yippy dogs. Horns and beeps and squeaks and windows with wonders and when finally at the store, multitudes of candy at eye-level … How could it be that this was not what you came all the way for? …
They teach us patience, that’s for certain.
They also teach us that time is what we make of it. That stress can catch one breath, and relaxation ride right in upon another. That one can laugh before their tears have dried and emotions coexist and flow without a judgment.
They hold a mirror to the things we have forgotten or have misplaced our truth about or have given up on trying to critically examine.
They listen. Even when they do not seem to.
More than most anything else, they note the mismatch of expression, the ambiguity of tone and matter. The odd things our mouths can say and we do not hear.
In part it is because small children are so literal. They get confused when they listen to the WORDS we say and find it not to match the words’ MEANING. Their reaction (and ensuing cuteness) can have us realize hidden ambiguity. They reflect what we once saw and now are almost blind to: how the world works even though words so often mean things they do not really mean.
Want a few examples?
A father talked about his mother looking after the children when he and his wife had to both be away. “She has a heart of gold,” he gushed. His preschooler daughter piped up and added, “no daddy, you forgot. Nana’s TEETH are gold …”
A mother had forgotten something she needed to ask me. “I’ve had it at the back of my head all day,” she sighed, frustrated. Her three-year-old scrambled up onto the couch and took a look, exclaiming, “No mamma, it is nothing there!”
“It is all politics and money,” another parent moped when a kindergarten admission did not go the way she’d hoped, “there’s absolutely nothing new under the sun!” Her almost kindergartener son looked at her sideways. “That not true, Mommy,” he said, rather accusingly. “I have new Spiderman shoes! You forgetting my new Spiderman shoes?!!”
Then there are the cats and dogs that do not really rain; the invisible pins and needles one can be on (and no wonder one’s child refuses to sit where the parent sat a moment prior!!); the feet in mouths (“You can’t do that no more, Daddy. You’re too old. You can’t reach like baby Deena!”); the bleeding hearts (think on that …); the pants on fire…
Language is a treasure trove of meaning, and learning symbolic language is a big task. It calls for the ability to hold two lines of listening: one for the words, another for the context. Children get very good at that around age 5 or so, though they get thoroughly confused before they realize that “listen to what I say” is far from straight forward.
Kids practice logic. They spend a good bit of their time making connections, figuring out how things work and what brings on what. If you pour too quickly, you spill everything. If you push your brother, mom gets cross. If you don’t stop whining, you may lose a privilege. If you mix milk with chocolate syrup magic happens and you get chocolate milk!
They get right fast at figuring out what makes what, and a never-ending list of ‘why’s helps them figure things out. They realize there are desired outcomes and less favorable ones, some adults that are easier to get things from, that there is misfortune and consequence. They get uncannily creative at hopeful attribution of fault …
They map their world into cause and effect. Into how things happen. Who does what.
And sometimes they make connections that are not quite as we would have put them. … Like the little girl with the (newly) pregnant mom, who asked quite loudly and in public: “Daddy, how did God put a baby inside mommy and didn’t tell her about it until she peed on the stick?”
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