Jujus

March 22, 2018March 22, 2018Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Professional Development, Speech Language Pathology, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: belief, Central Park, children, Magic, Postaday, speech therapy, Talisman, The Daily Post, Things Kids Say 1 Comment

Photo: Samantha Mars

She dragged her book bag up the stairs.

Step, bang. Step, bang.

“It looks heavy,” I noted.

“Yeah,” she huffed and paused to frown in the direction of the patchwork of princesses on the backpack. I found myself wondering whether she was directing discontent at her idolized figures not using their royal powers to, at the very least, summon genie help to manage gravity.

“Want me to help carry the bag for you?” I offered.

She raised an eyebrow as if the mere thought of my definitely-not-princess hands handling her bag was beneath the Disney figures that dignified it.

The first-grader lugged the bag another step and stopped, perhaps to reconsider if there are times when commoners’ help is better than none at all. “Yeah,” she nodded.

I walked down to take the bag from her. The thing was heavy!

“What do you have in there?!” I asked. “Rocks?!”

“Aha,” she nodded sagely, skipped a few steps up ahead of me and swiveled her head to look back at me. “Come faster. I want to show you.”

I lifted the bag (and an eyebrow) in her direction and she giggled. “Sorry… Thanks.”

Once upstairs she indicated I was to clear space for whatever that was, then ceremoniously unzipped the top of her school bag and pulled out a succession of boulders. She placed each with care onto the desk. Several pounds of them.

I waited. The lot looked to me like run-of-the-mill New York stones: mostly dark gray schist dappled with a bit of quartz glint.

She leaned back in her chair and waited. Clearly a reaction was warranted.

“That’s a lot of rocks!” I managed.

“Not regular rocks,” she admonished. “These have magic.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” she proclaimed. “They have real magic. And gold, too. Inside.”

I tilted my head a bit to one side and nodded my interest.

She narrowed her eyes at me, weighing the merits of talking to grown ups about matters of magic and gold. “They can even make your wishes come true …”

“But … ” she regarded me before adding, a bit haughtily and perhaps to punish me for my lack of immediate awe, “you do have to believe in them, so they’ll only do the magic for me.”

For The Daily Post

A Meter Above

March 2, 2018March 2, 2018Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: From the mouths of babes, Poetry, Postaday, Quotes, speech therapy, The Daily Post, Things Kids Say, Truth, wisdom 2 Comments

Photo: Pinterest

He came in with a poem.

“I used to hate this stuff,” he noted, holding the page face down so I won’t peek while he explains. “But after you showed me ‘A Light in the Attic’ and told me what all this poetry word salad stuff means …” He grinned, pleased at being able to insert one of the expressions from last week. “I think it’s kinda’ fun, actually.”

He lifted his hand from the page, but left it hovering an inch above the white expanse. “You might not like this,” he warned. “It’s sort of a rap song. You know. People my age like those …”

I chuckled. “I know I’m much older than you but I actually don’t mind rap. It’s only when the language is really inappropriate that I don’t care for it.”

He peered at me, only half-convinced. “Anyway … no cuss words here. Even my mom said it’s fine. The first words are from her fridge magnet thingy.”

He turned the page and cleared his throat. “But tell me if you really like it, okay?” he glanced up, suddenly a lot less certain and a lot more the little boy. He took a deep breath. “Here goes …”

“As above

So below.

We learn more

As we go.

So make sure

To go slow.”

For The Daily Post

Mnemonically Challenged

February 11, 2018Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Professional Development, Reflections, Speech Language Pathology, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: Just listen, Memory, middle-school, Mnemonic, speech pathology, speech therapy, tests, The Daily Post, Things Kids Say 2 Comments

Photo: teachingmomster.com

“I failed the test,” she sighed and let her book bag slump to the floor.

“What test, and I’m so sorry.” I responded.

“Social studies. History stuff. I studied so hard!” She plunked herself into the chair. Dejection personified. “Who put all those stupid names and dates in there, anyway?”

“Names and dates can be really difficult to remember,” I noted. “I find it helpful to connect them with the story of what happened, or with something else to remind of what the name or date relate to.”

“Yeah, well,” her eyes rose to meet mine, accusatory at my not understanding she just needed me to let her vent. “But you are not mnemonically challenged!”

For The Daily Post

Life, Simplified.

February 9, 2018Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Professional Development, Speech Language Pathology, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: babies, Birth, Child's perspective, Funnies, life, speech therapy, speech-language-pathology, The Daily Post, Things Kids Say 6 Comments

Photo: King College, London

“It’s not hard,” she said. “Here, I’ll show you.”

“You make a circle …” she demonstrated. “Then you make eyes and mouth and little bit of hair and hands and legs. See?”

She held the drawing up to show me. Lines for arms and legs sprouted out of the crooked circle ‘head,’ topped by a few smaller lines of a sparse mohawk.

“Then,” she planted the paper back on the table, “you go to the hospital and the doctor makes magic and it’s a baby.”

For The Daily Post

It’s a Puzzle!

February 2, 2018February 2, 2018Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Professional Development, Reflections, Speech Language Pathology, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: children, Comprehension, Funny, Language, listening, Nature, Puzzled, speech therapy, The Daily Post, Things Kids Say Leave a comment

Photo: Amitai Asif

“Can animals be naked?” he asked, his little forehead creased in perplexed concentration.

“Naked how?” I responded. “Animals don’t usually wear clothes. People may dress their dogs with coats or booties if its raining or snowing, but even that only sometimes.”

He waved me off. “I’m not talking about dogs, even.”

I smiled. The kindergartener’s contenance was a smaller version of adolescents’ exasperation at the ‘know-nothing-adults’ they are somehow expected to live with.

“Oh, okay.” I conceded, “I guess I misunderstood. What did you mean, then?”

“Other things. Like, um … snakes.”

“Snakes?!” I repeated.

“Yeah.” He moved his head up and down for emphasis. “Because I think maybe a snake took his clothes off and ran away and now he’s naked.”

Comprehension slithered in to lift my confusion. “Was this when you went to visit your grandma in Arizona?”

He nodded again. “It looked like a snake but it was only snake clothes.”

I grinned. “I think you saw a snake skin shed! How cool! But don’t worry, it still has skin on its body. You see, when a snake’s skin is too small for it, it grows new skin underneath and then it wriggles out of the old skin and sheds it inside out like a sock.”

The little boy narrowed his eyes and inspected my expression to see if I was perhaps pulling his leg. What he saw in my face must’ve reassured him.

“Good,” he said. “Because I didn’t want everyone to see his privates.”

For The Daily Post

Tooth Booth

January 30, 2018Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Professional Development, Speech Language Pathology, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: Cavities, children, Dental Health, Funny, Literal thinking, speech therapy, The Daily Post, Things Kids Say, Tooth-Fairy 4 Comments

Photo: Craftgawker.com

“I have a cavity in my mouth!” she announced, elated.

“You do?” I couldn’t suppress a smile. The contrast between the child’s delight and the mom’s anguish was too funny.

“Yeah,” the girl expounded, lisping all the way. “It’s a hole! The dentist has a special magic mirror for my teeth and she looked all over and she said I have a cavity.”

“Wow,” I managed and raised an eyebrow at the mom, who nodded solemnly.

“Next week,” the mother sighed. “I’m not looking forward to it …”

I understood why. This little girl could raise roofs at the mere sight of needles. Just ten days prior the mom had shared with me her mortification at the horrified looks people had given her when she’d emerged with her child from a routine blood draw. “Everyone in that waiting room must have been convinced we were slicing her in pieces,” the mom had vented. “I can’t believe they hadn’t all called Child Protective Services or 911.”

“Laughing gas …” I mouthed.

The mom inhaled and shrugged and nodded all in one. Skeptical and perhaps a little hopeful.

“Not next week,” the child pointed out. “Tonight!”

The mom and I exchanged looks.

“What do you mean, tonight?” the mother asked. “Doc Dee said she’ll see us after lunch next Tuesday.”

“Yeah,” the little girl waved this information away. “But I have a cavity,” she stressed. “So the Tooth Fairy is going to get it first.”

She opened her mouth to give us both a good look before turning to me. “I don’t know why the dentist needed a magic mirror,” she added and her voice rose in puzzlement. “I can see my cavity right away already.”

She held her mouth agape and pointed to a newly lost incisor. “See? It’s right here.”

For The Daily Post

Know Everything

January 15, 2018Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Professional Development, Reflections, Speech Language Pathology, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: Asking Questions, children, learning, listening, speech therapy, Study, The Daily Post, Things Kids Say 9 Comments

Photo: Atara Katz

“How did you learn how to know everything?” she asked.

“I don’t think anyone knows everything,” I responded, only half-attending. A siren from a fire-engine distracted me. The driver leaned on the horn. Someone must have not given the emergency vehicle the right of way.

“But how did you learn how to know everything?” she insisted.

The First Grader’s tone brought me back to full attention. She hung her big brown eyes on me.

“You mean, how do people work on knowing more and more?” I tried.

A shadow of a frown passed over the small visage, then the girl seemed to decide this not-at-all-what-I-asked-about-reframe is as comprehensive as this adult in front of her can probably muster at the moment. She nodded.

“Different people may have different ways of learning,” I replied, “but for me, I like finding out new things. So I observe and try to listen. I read a lot, and I ask plenty of questions …”

“… you do ask a lot of questions,” she interrupted. “But sometimes I think you already know the answers.”

I grinned. “Sometimes I do … And sometimes,” I teased, “I think you know the answers to your questions, too …”

For The Daily Post

It’s a Zoo!

November 30, 2017Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Professional Development, Speech Language Pathology, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: delight, Figuring it out, For a smile, Idiom, Language, speech therapy, Symbolic language, The Daily Post, Things Kids Say 1 Comment

Photo: Pinterest

“It’s a zoo over there!”

She exclaimed. Out of breath.

Cheeks still red from the stairs

And the cold evening air.

“It’s a zoo in the store.

It’s a zoo in the park.

It’s a zoo … at the zoo,”

Her smile grew.

She cracked up.

Couldn’t stop.

Her delight

Only matched

By the first time she ‘got’

“Slipped my mind” meant forgot.

For The Daily Post

Rhyme Time

August 29, 2017Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Speech Language Pathology, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: children, Funny, grandparents, Hearing aids, hearing loss, Incentive, Rhyme, speech therapy, The Daily Post, Things Kids Say 2 Comments

Photo: dragonhillart.blogspot.com

“Hi, bye, my, spy,” he walked in, grinning.

I smiled at the five-and-a-half year old. A head of brown curls and melt-you-on-the-spot dark-chocolate eyes, green glasses, summer freckles, a missing tooth from playground accident at age three, a superhero hearing aid. Pure charm.

“Why, shy, guy, cry?” he challenged.

“Why indeed?” I chuckled.

“Ask my dad,” he giggled. “He told me that one. One, sun, fun, done.”

“You’re rhyming a lot today!”

He nodded. “I’m practicing. My grandpa gives me a dime every time I rhyme.”

For The Daily Post