I have a VERY talkative kid. VERY. For someone who only gushes with a really good friend, or occasionally her husband, you’d think that my kid would not be much of a chatty girl, but she is. Now most of the time, I have a pretty big tolerance for it. When it gets to be enough that the dogs howl down the road because it’s so high pitched and screamy, or an instant headache forms, I’m on the road to ‘shhhhh’ a lot. Unfortunately, this seems to be just about every day. Occasionally, though, if I just sit down with her at the table, we can have some pretty good chats. I think toys are the main culprit (imaginary play), and taking them out of the equation definitely circumvents that aspect of ‘screaminess’.
So, yesterday (Friday) she had me pulling my daily notebook (used for paying bills and writing down reminders) over to me at the table repeatedly to catch some of the ‘things kids say’ that just blew my mind. I repeated them to my husband, and he was NOT prepared for the comedy and depth of these. Granted, she’s almost 4, but she seems to really catch onto things we are saying, and then combine it with other things she KNOWS and really give you a one-liner now, and it is fabulous!
“Mom, why DID God make mosquitoes?” she went on to pray for God to “stop sending mosquitoes”.. I really didn’t have a good answer to that one so I echoed it back to her.
(looking at a cartoon coloring page of Frankenstein) “Mom, why is the monster wearing shoes?” — I responded that he probably had cold feet.
and… “Mom you were just kidding, he’s not a monster, he’s HUMAN”… you know I’ll admit, this one almost threw me… but I said “well you know, there’s a really good explanation for that, but I think you’re too young to understand and it would probably freak you out, so let’s just say he’s 1/2 human and 1/2 monster”.. thankfully, that was good enough for her.
(studying a vampire cartoon coloring page).. “I know what this is, it’s a .. a VAMPIRE”.. so proud of herself was she as we have only briefly mentioned various Halloween spooks.. and so of course I was trying to be helpful and said “how do you know it’s a vampire.. by the …” fully expecting her to say ‘cape’ or ‘teeth’… and she promptly said “SHOES! Scary shoes.”… that one was good for a laugh and a “well I guess you’re right”…
You know, looks like 4 is going to be a pretty good thing!
Pamela
It doesn’t seem possible that she is that old and carrying on such conversations!