From Jennifer (USA)
My 7 year old son had several mosquito bites on his legs. We were sitting in the family room watching TV when a commercial for vaginal itching came on. A few minutes later my son says 'Mom I think I need some of that.' We all got a good laugh out of that one.

From Robyn (USA)
Our daughter is 7 years old. This past summer she heard about Locks of Love, where people donate their hair to have wigs made for children who have lost their hair through chemo or disease. She has been growing her hair ever since, planning on donating it after her upcoming 1st communion as a way of 'giving back'. She is very proud of herself (as we are of her). The other day though, she was admiring her very long, thick hair in the mirror. I asked her if perhaps she did not want to cut it. Her reply: 'Just think of how much I love my hair, and when I cut it, I will STILL have hair, but those poor kids have no hair at all!' Makes me wonder just who the adult is here!

From Rebecca (Australia)
I have two girls aged 3 and 4. The other day we were at a friend's house for lunch. We were sitting outside having a lovely wine when all of a sudden out walked my 3-year-old with no hair. I couldnt believe it! All of her beautiful hair had been chopped off. Next was my 4-year-old who had hacked hair, then my friend's 3-year-old who also had a trim done. They were all very proud of their achievement. Apparently my 3-year-old wanted to look like a baby boy. Well she did a pretty good job. The moral of the story: don't leave scissors out, even if they say recommended for 3 and over. I wont again.

From Shannon (USA)
When my oldest son was four, he found a pair of scissors and cut his hair. It was so short that he had to get it all shaved. A few days later we went to visit his grandma. It was raining, and I ran up to the porch. I looked around and my son was standing in the rain. I called to him to come in out of the rain and his response was, 'Just a minute mom, I am watering my head to make my hair grow!'

From Kim (USA)
I was teaching my five-year-old daughter, Grace, about Abraham Lincoln. We were discussing how honest he was. 'He was so honest, he earned the nickname 'Honest Abe', ' I said. (I really spent time driving that fact home.) I continued, 'In 1860, he was elected President of the United States.' To which my daughter replied, 'And then he became a liar?'

From Anne (USA)
I overheard my 8 year old son talking to his 11 year old sister about the upcoming hoiday season. 'Sissy, do you know that some kids in my class don't believe in Santa?' She replied 'Yeah and some don't believe in God either and that's the whole reason for Christmas!' My son said 'I don't get it, how can they not believe? What do they think, that our parents get up in the middle of the night and put those presents under the tree? Do they really think that they bought all those gifts with their own money?!'

From Mary (USA)
My daughter Heather age 14 sat down after hearing about the bombings and wrote a poem that I wanted to share. It goes as follows. Dirt & ashes fill the air dark as the day has become.... But from these ashes the sun will rise & the people will band together..... The buried bodies will not be forgotten & the day of darkness will inspirer..... Hate & frustration will become love & knowledge..... Because of the lives that were lost, a new hope will be found..... From the ashes a nation will rise & hope makes a light that will never die !!!

From Darrell (USA)
My daughter had to get her shots for school. After going to the doctor I called her at home from work to see how it went. I asked how did it go and was she a 'big girl'? She proudly exclaimed 'YEP!' I then asked did she cry? She said 'YEP!' Who says big girls don't cry? Have a great day!

From Lisa (USA)
I have 2 daughters one is 10 and the other 8. Well, one day I couldnt help but be amazed at my 8 year old when she started crying, I asked her why she was crying. She looked at me and said 'Mama, I dont ever want to grow up.' I of course asked her why, she replied 'I always want to stay this age, because all you get to do when you grow up is work, pay bills and babysit!' I was speechless!!!!

From Nola (USA)
I have two daughters named Chastity and Linnea. Chastity is the older (14), but something shocking happened the other day. We were in a store and Chastity picked up identical earrings and said that she and Linnea could each have a pair and it would be a 'thing...'. Well, Linnea (9) corrected her, saying it would be 'a representation of our love.'
Of course, I bought the earrings!

From Deanna (USA)
I am a 41 yr. old mother of identical 2 year old boys. Somedays they are quite a handful. When you ask either, "Who are you?" They both say Juson. They do not have two identities they call themselves 'Juson,' a combination of Justin & Jason.
This makes it very difficult to get the right one for the crime! :)

From Sandy (USA)
My 12 year old wrote the cutest poem - I'd like to share it with others:

Growing Up
By: Sarah J

I used to be young,
No more, no more.

Watching TV
was a bore, a bore.

Playing in the mud
was the best time I had,

And getting in trouble
wasn’t so bad.

But now all that
Fun, messy, kiddy stuff
Is now replaced
By make-up and blush.

Now every morning,
I have to brush my hair.
And now I care
about what I wear.

But when growing up
seems to be a dud,
I go out
and splash around in the mud.

From Christine (Canada)
My daughter is 8 years old, when I was pregnant, I just made a comment about how the baby moves around a lot when I am eating. She said, ' Maybe the baby is full!!!' I just thought that was the most funniest thing I've ever heard!

From Rhea (USA)
One weekend my husband, myself and my 4 year old were all relaxing watching TV. Everything was fine until a commercial for pills that help men with, well..bedroom problems, came on the TV. My son hadn't been feeling well and when he seen the commercial he turned to us and said, 'I think I need some of that to make me feel better!'

From Kim (South Africa)
I have a 4-year-old who has a lovely sense of humor. One day while he was sleeping over at his grandparents, my mother asked him to answer the telephone for her because she was busy doing something. On the telephone, was his grandfather who spoke to him a little and then asked if he could speak to Gran. After a short silence on the telephone my father heard a little voice saying "Hello, this is grandmother speaking." He played along with his game a little but could not help laughing and of course told everyone the story.

I'm sure my face turned a little darker shade of pink after that!

I am not actually a parent, I'm 11, but my mother used to daycare my cousin, Eric (seven) and reading the stories made me think of one about him. When Eric was about four, my family bought a car from Eric's family. Eric was very upset about this, but his father comforted him, saying that Eric would be able to drive very soon so he could borrow the car and drive it. Eric looked up, the picture of innocence, and said "All right, I'll drive when my feet are long, like yours, daddy."

From Jean (USA)
I was visiting my daughter and grandson - who happened to have a beautiful home right next to a babbling brook that made a delightful sound. As I tucked my 3-year-old grandson into bed on a gently warm night I decided to leave open for awhile the door (which led outside and was next to his bed) so he could feel the night breeze. As I finished tucking him in I noted a surprised expression on his face and he asked quizzically "all night too?" he had just realized the water in the brook did not stop running when daylight ended.

Neal (USA)
I am a stay-at-home dad with my 18-month old. She surprised us by starting to potty train. So we bought the chair and "big girl" diapers and gave lots of praise and encouragment with clapping and lots of "yeahs." My wife and I try to "go" at the same time to show her the process -- yes, this means there's no "standing" when she's around. One day she took all her clothes off and was walking around the bathroom and I thought she was going to pee. But because she wasn't going to her potty chair, I figured it was just her wanting to be naked. However, I looked away from what I was doing and she was "standing" in front of the toilet with her hips pushed forward and peed in the floor. She turned to me and clapped and said, "YEAH!"

I guess there must have been a time when I was in a real hurry or didn't know she was watching and she decided this was an easier option.

From Samantha (USA)

When my 11 year old daughter was 1 or 2 -- on her birthday -- she had a big cake in front of her then she stuck her whole face in the cake. She was all covered in chocolate. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen.

From Jessica (USA)

I was in Wal-Mart the other day and my kid was in the card isle. And she forgot that her brother had our cart and she took someones cart and it had someone elses purse in it. And then we went outside and she almost got into someone elses car.

From Jill (USA)

When I was a little girl, I didn't like my mother to dance because I thought she looked funny. When I started to dance in front of my six year old to her N' Sync CD -- she said, "Stop dancing mom. You look like a dork!"
Even when we think we look cool, our kids beg to differ!!

From Shari (USA)

My 4 yr old was playing with his Power Ranger action figure and came running in to the kitchen where I was, and was crying hystercially. His Power Ranger doll was headless and me being upset that he broke his favorite toy, in my sarcastist way said, "Well, who told you to break it?" He replied, "Spiderman did!" (his other action figure)

From Terri (USA)

Remember Me Story.
About a year ago I went back to work full time. My husband works days and I work second shift. My three-year old said to me that he misses me at night. So every night when I would leave for work, I would kiss his hand and leave a lipstick print on his hand. I told him that when he started to miss me, just look at your hand and think of me. This has been going on for a year now. Last week he had a class trip with his pre-school. When we went to the gift shop I told him to pick out one thing to buy. He talked me into buying him a shark-on-a-stick and a key chain. I gave in and purchased both items. That night when I was leaving for work, I kissed him goodbye and kissed his hand. He pulled the key chain out of his pocket and told me when I got to work and started to miss him, I should just pull out the key chain and think of him. I cried all the way to work. That key chain is the best gift I ever received.

From Tammy (Taiwan)

My son, Shawn is a very smart, but naughty boy. One day, he was in his English teacher's class. He made his teacher angry. His teacher was really mad and said, "God, you are a nut."
My son said, "No, I am a boy, not a nut."

From Mary (USA)

When my daughter, Lydia, was about 14 months old she wanted me to sit on the floor with her. When I started to sit down she said "No, I want to sit like an idiot." My first reaction was, "who's been around my kid?" Before scolding her I thought I'd better get to the bottom of what she was talking about. So I asked her, "how do idiots sit?" And she said, "my Sunday School Teacher says to cross your feet and sit down, like an idiot." After regaining my composure I told her "Indians," not "idiots."

From Shannypooh (USA)

My 2 year old is such a crazy girl! She tends to make an awful mess w/ the water when taking a bath. I have had to get on to her over and over about splashing the water out of the tub. She was in the tub this morning, and I said, "Now remember, we do not splash water out of the tub." She nodded her head and said, "I know, I will get in 'twuble'." I went out to see what my oldest was fussin' about. When I came back, there she sat, with water all over the floor! Before I could get ONE word out, she looked at me w/ those puppy-dog eyes, and said, "Mommy, I just couldn't help it. I was being a mermaid and the water just jumped out!" I had to hide the laughter, but at the same time I was upset. I sat there w/ her for the rest of her bath, and we played 'mermaid', but we didn't splash the water out.

From Kari (USA)

"Hi, my name is Kari. My sister had a baby and now she is 1-year, but when she was 8-months old, her mommy put the trash out. So she went go get her shoes and sat by the door waiting for her mommy! I think she is the best baby in the USA!

From sherry (USA)

After using the bathroom at my sisters house, my 4 year old son tried to make light of the fact that he had urinated on her toilet seat. He said to my sister, "Sorry, Aunt Brandy, but it got away from me in there and it peed all over your toilet before I could do anything." While still laughing at what he had said, he began to reach into a bag of chips. I reminded him he needed to wash his hands. He responds quickly with, "they're clean! I just told you i couldnt catch the thing!"

From April (USA)

We were talking to our kids about how hard life could be for some people and they were lucky they didnt know what hard really was. My 4-year old let us know he knew what hard was. We asked him what he meant. He said, "rocks are hard, mom!"

From Alice (USA)

My little sister was riding her little trike in our neighboor's driveway. She started to cry. I ran over to her.
I asked her if she was hurt. She said no. I asked her is something was wrong with her bike. She said no.
Suddenly, Austin, our 2 year-old, said "she's hot."
He nodded his head. I asked Cassie if she was hot. She shook her head yes.
So we went into our air-conditioned home.
I thought that was funny!

From Sue-Ellen (Switzerland)

This was the most embarassing thing! While me and my husband were doing God's work, my 2-year old son walked in and said, "Whatchya doing, mama?" Well me and my husband were speechless! We quickly covered ourselves up and I said, "Oh, honey, we're having a sumersault contest! Go back to bed!" Well, luckily he left, and me and my husband continued our contest!

From Rachel (USA)

My brother Clark he is 4 years old. I asked him to count for me. He counted up to 13. I asked him to count higher. So he put his hands higher in the air and counted to 13. He did the same when I asked, "can you count lower?"

From Vivian (USA)

I had just picked up my 3-year old son from school, and we were talking about what he did at school and so forth. And he said, "Yeah, I have a lot of brains in my head." I was laughing for days.

From Carol (Canada)

My daughter Raychel had her favorite candy. She dropped one on the floor at the Mall. I told her to throw it away, that the candy was dirty. She bluntly looked at me and replied, "God made dirt, and dirt don't hurt!" -- and ate the candy.

From Angie (USA)

Josh, my two year old, got the jar of Ovaltine down and opened it.. preceeded to add water to it and dump it on my hardwood floor while I was helping his older brother with homework. He then came and said, "look, mom, look mom.... When we got to his absolutely sticky mess . . . he had a puddle of half mixed ovatine and water and was running his matchbox cars thru it... Then he ended it by sitting down next to it and saying, "LOOK, MOM! MUD." He preceeded to continue driving his trucks and cars thru it. (and I was wondering what he was doing that he was so quiet for so long!) LOL

From Niki (USA)

I was babysitting my sister - 2 year old Erin - when she locked herself in the bathroom and I didnt know what to do. So I called my sister who was at work. She said she would be right over. When we finally got her out she was covered in her mother's makeup. We laughed so hard we almost cried.

From Tari (Canada)

I was in the living room one day and my 4-year old daughter said to me, "you know what you can do for me mommy?"

I replied, "What can I do for you sweetie?"

She then replied, "you can clean the house for me!"

"Now can I?" I replied.

From Michelle (Canada)

It was parents day a my 5-year old's (Sarah's) school. Her class had a song they planned to sing to the parents. They each got a musical instrument to play, also. Sarah got the cymbals. After the song was done, Sarah turned to look at me and then she yelled, "Hey, look mom!" When I saw what she had done, I was so embarressed! Sarah had taken the cymbals and held them up to her chest pretending they were her breasts.

From Lizzy (Ireland)

My husband and I have been discussing having another child. We had asked our 4 yr. old son Conor if he wanted a new brother or sister. He thought about it and answered with a resounding YES!

I made an appointment with our doctor to discuss the possibility of getting pregnant. As we were sitting in the waiting room Conor asked, 'Are we getting our baby today?'

User From Lea (USA)

Our local skating rink featured a huge sign in the front entrance advertising hosted parties: "Birthday parties -- call for reservations!"
Driving home after his party our 6-year old son seemed a bit disappointed. "What's wrong, honey, didn't you like your party?"
"Well yes..." he said, "but I think they forgot to give us something."
"Really, what?" I asked.
"Mom, we never got any of those reservations!"
Now that story is a staple in our family!

From MELANIE (USA)

WAS GOING TO THE CAR TO GET MY CAMCORDER WHEN MY 2-YEAR OLD SON WAS STANDING ON THE PORCH. HE SAID, "MOMMY, ARE YOU IN ANOTHER STATE NOW?"
I LAUGHED AND SAID, "I'M JUST AT THE CAR, SWEETY!"

From Erica (USA)

I have a 3 year old son and I have one on the way. I had just finished my shower when my three year old walked in and gave me a funny look. I asked him what was wrong and he said that he didn't like my belly button. I asked him why and he replyed with "Because mine can't do that!"

From Pamela (France)

Marissa was three years old and starting nursery school in France. She was the youngest of three girls and the only daughter and grandaughter on her father's side of the family. She was asked her name and replied to her teacher Marissa Autumn....Princess.... When I picked her up, the teacher told me she wouldn't answer unless they called her "Princess"... So on the way home from school, I had to explain that while she was our princess -- we didn't want the whole world to know -- so she had to just go by her little name at school.

From Stacie (USA)

Reading these reminded me of my three year old who is having a growth spurt. My sister had not seen her in a week and when she did she told my daughter, Gracious Ansleigh, "I think you have grown a foot." I did not think we would be able to compose ourselves when she suddenly started looking everywhere for the extra foot she had grown. When she did not see one she said, "Aunt Cathey I only see two."

From Patty (Canada)

One day I took Lucas shopping with me.
We went in a toy store and he found a tool bench to play with. To keep him quiet for a while, I let him play a bit.
When we were ready to leave the store, I did not know Lucas put a toy hammer in my bag. I didn't notice till we got two blocks away. When I went in the bag for something, there it was, the hammer. I ran it back to the store before they called the cops on us. I made him give it back to the owner, and he said he was sorry and he would never take anything again with out paying for it first. Then he gave a funny smile. He is only 2 yrs old.
Pretty smart, huh!

From Stephanie (USA)

I once watched a friends child. Her name was Alexandra. She was a fysty little one though. But anyways, She is 1 and still drinks out of bottles. She was in my room on the bed with her bottle and blankey and all of a sudden she started screaming because her bottle fell on the ground and she couldn't get off the bed to get it because the bed's too high. I was rushing toward her to see what was wrong and all she would blabber was boty. I was trying to figure out what it meant, but all I could think of is that she went to the bathroom and was tring to say potty. So, I then ran her to the bathroom and she would only grab things on the way there to stop her. I then took her back in the room and found her bottle on the ground and then returned it to her!! So from now on I am careful about looking first!!

From Katie (Canada)

My brother was only 2 years old and he was on my dad's lap. My dad was trying to fix the computer. The computer had been messed up for a month or more and my dad was getting really mad!
My brother giggled and said, "oh daddy, I can fix it!"
My brother pressed one key....and Windows 95 came up on the screen! The computer was fixed!

From Arleen (USA)

My three-year old Joarnell and I went to the supermarket. We walked up and down the isles until we got to spaghetti sauce area. Another lady was also getting some spaghetti sauce, and I go the same kind... All of the sudden we made some small talk and we went our separate ways. After a few minutes of being driving around in the cart, my daughter asked: "Mommy, do you always have to talk to everyone you don't know?"
I thought she was so cute.

From Lee (USA)

As part of our holiday decorations, we have a reindeer on our front steps. My son, who just turned 3, named this reindeer Rudolph and talks to him every day. My son and I went out one afternoon and while we were gone a friend dropped off a giant plastic snowman that she was giving to us. She had left in on the stairway right next to Rudolph. When we pulled in the driveway my son noticed the snowman immediately and yelled out in excitement, "Look Mommy, Rudolph made us a snowman!"

From Jessica (USA)

my little girl (5yeasr old) Rose was playing with her doll. I asked her,"dolly want a popcicle?" She said, "ya!" So I gave her a popcicle. she put it up to her doll, and nothing happened. So then she put her tongue on it and it stuck! next thing I new she had pulled it off. Through tears and whines I heard her say,"Dolly not a good safety tester!" And I said, "no! she isn't!"

From JENNIFFER (USA)

MY SEVEN YEAR OLD DAUGHTER WAS PLAYING WITH HER AUNT AND HER BOYFRIEND, WHEN ALL OF A SUDDEN, WHEN SHES JUST ABOUT TO GET TICKLED, SHE "YELLS PLEASE DONT I'M JUST A LITTLE GIRL!" I THOUGHT THAT SOUNDED SO INNOCENT -- THAT I JUST LAUGHED.

From Cindy (USA)

When my daughter was three I had asked her what she should say when someone told her that she was pretty. (what I was trying to get her to realize was to say, "Thank You!") Well that's not how it went... She said that she should tell them No she is not Pretty... She's Beautiful.

From Marilyn (USA)

I'm a grandma raising my now 10yr old granddaughter. When she was around 5yrs old, I decided to dye my hair. When I mentioned this to her, she had a fit!! "NO GRANDMA, DON'T DYE YOUR HAIR!" I asked her why? Her reply was, "because I love you just the way you are." That made me feel so good until she added, "besides grandma's are suppose to be old, fat and grey headed." My hair is STILL grey!!! I love my granddaughter very much.

From SABRINA (USA)

MY DAD WAS BABY SITTING HIS GRANDKIDS. MY DAUGHTER WHO IS THREE WAS TALKING TO HIM (ALOT). THE OTHER KIDS WERE OUTSIDE. MY DAD TOLD HER TO DO THE SAME.
SHE TOLD HIM, "I CAN'T GO OUT WITHOUT MY PARENTS!"

From Cindy (USA)

Recently, my almost-2-year-old was playing with stickers. She is also just beginning potty training -- many times we go to the bathroom together.

On one particular bathroom trip this day, I realized I had a sticker stuck to the bottom of my sock. As she sat across from me in the bathroom, I raised my foot and asked her, "Mary, what is on Mommy's foot?" She looked at me very quizzically and said, "Mommy's leg."

Donna (USA)
I remember when my son when trick-or-treating for the first time, he was about 2. Well, after the first few houses of people giving him candy -- to my surprise and amusement he began offering his candy to the next few houses not understanding why they wouldn't take it from him. He is 6 now and there is no way you could get candy from his hands now!!!!

From Pam (USA)

A couple of years ago when my daughter Madison was 2, she was sick with two ear infections and didn't feel very well. For Christmas that year she had received from Santa a Dalmation playhouse. So to help her feel better and make a better transition to bed this particular night, I decided we would play in the playhouse before lying down. As we were talking and playing, Madison accidentally fell on me. I replied to her, "Oh, baby, you lost your balance." She stood up with a very confused expression on her face, looking around on the floor behind her and in front of her. Her statement back to me was "Where, Mommy?"

Angie (USA)

One day my mother and I were driving with my 2 1/2-year old in the back seat. We were talking when all of the sudden my daughter yelled 'MOM!! SOMEONE BROKED THE SUN'. My mother and I looked in the sky and the sun was shining through two parts in a cloud and it did look like someone broke the sun. My mom and I laughed so hard that she almost had to pull over. It was so cute.

Muna (Canada)

Ever since my daughter began to babble, I've tried to tape record her attempts to talk. She's now 7-months old, but one morning when she was 4-months old, she woke up and was babbling and giggling like never before. I crawled over to where the tape recorder was so she wouldn't see me and stuck the microphone in between the bumper pad of her crib. She continued for a few more minutes and then stopped, and then began giggling hysterically. I finally looked up and saw that somehow, she had managed to take off her diaper. She had peed all over the bed and was waving the diaper around like she had accomplished some wonderful victory. Needless to say, she always wears something over her diaper when she goes to sleep now.

Katy (United_Kingdom)
My youngest son mark went to Crane Park in Whitton.
He was laughing at a small kid that had gotten his foot wet in the river crane, when a sudden gust of strong wind made Mark fall into the river. Every body was laughing, apart from the boy Mark had been insulting.
I asked him what was wrong because he started to cry. He said "Mark was wearing my tatoo and it isn't wind proof I mean water proof."
I said it was only a tatoo, and he said it was the tatoo that came free on the first ever Dandy comic that his grand dad had given him!!!!!

Stephanie (Canada)

Our 5-year old son Travis is downstairs in the rec room. Our 3-year old daughter Shannon is in the kitchen with my husband and myself. Daddy asked Shannon to get Travis to eat supper. Shannon stands at the top of the stairs and yells, "TRAVIS!" Daddy says, "Shannon, I could have done that." Shannon asks, "Do what?" Daddy says "Yell for Travis." Shannon says, "I do it Daddy," and yells, "Travis'" name again. Travis responds, "What?" Shannon yells, "Come here." There is this back-and-forth exchange a couple times -- so Daddy intercepts and says, "Shannon, tell Travis why." So Shannon yells downstairs to Travis, "Why Travis!"

boogie (USA)

My 7-year old son was noticing how tanned his skin was one day. After comparing his to mine, he commented how a freind of ours was a full indian. Then he went on to say how he thought her son was at least a half or quarter indian. "Or," he says, "he may even be a dime."

Parent (Canada)

My son was in the kitchen. I told him to eat his crackers and if he did, I said that when I returned he could have some of the brownies I made. So, he said, "OK." And then I left the room. In a half an hour, I came back and saw him eating the brownies. I asked him, "who ate my brownies?" (but he didn't know I knew he ate them.) And he said, "I don't know!" Then I kept on asking him, "who ate my brownies?" So he said, "I don't know!" So then I asked him 1 more time, "who ate my brownies?" He said, "maybe a bird pecked at them!" And while he was saying this, he was nibbiling at the brownies. I asked him, "where's the bird?" He said, "it just jumped out of the window." And then he said, "I was eating my crackers and he just came in and ate the brownies!" But then, when he heard you, he flew away. . . . ." And then I said, "your crakers are still there. You haven't touched them!" And he kept on saying, "YES I DID."

Woody (USA)

Lots of times when we don't know what to make for dinner, we stand in front of the fridge or the pantry hoping ideas will come to us.

Recently as I was standing -- staring into the pantry, my 20-month old walked up beside me, put her hands on her hips, stared straight ahead and said, "Hmmmm."

guess I must say that as I stand there, too.

Peggy (Canada)
We were visiting my sister-in-laws with my daughter, Meghan, who at the time was 18 months old. After supper I thought I would put her in the low bed to sleep. I stayed with her until her eyes closed and she seemed asleep. Then I quietly left the room to visit with my relatives. About 15 minutes later, I asked my sister-in-law to check my daughter while she was at that end of the hall. The next thing I heard was Shirley laughing and talking to my daughter. She was saying, "Oh, my poor cats." There in the cat basket were 5 kittens and a mother cat covered in penatin cream. Meghan had smeared the cream all over the kittens, and the mother cat was trying frantically to clean them. Meghan was covered in the cream as well. Those poor little kitties! They were covered in that cream for a month. I can't imagine what it was like for that mother to have to lick that cream off. Yuck.

Steve (USA)
My brother-in-law Eric was telling me about a time when my 3 year old nephew Stuart gave away a secret that my sister and Stuart had been keeping.
Seems that they started a morning ritual of dropping Eric at work and then stopping at a donut shop on the way home to have coffee and chat with some of her friends. Eric didn't know anything about this until one holiday morning after going out for breakfast, when Stuart saw that they were driving past the donut shop. He turned to my sister and said, ' donut mommy?' Turns out that at the time , she had been telling Eric how well her diet had been going!

Peggy (Canada)
On my daughter's second birthday, she received a kitten from her aunt and uncle. While I was visiting with my relatives, Meghan was playing with the kitten. A little while later, it seemed very quiet, and I got up to investigate.
I found my daughter in the bathroom, with her sleeves rolled up, with the half-drowned kitten in her hand. She was standing beside the toilet, dunking the kitten up and down repeatedly into the tiolet bowl. As I quickly rescued the kitten and I asked her what on earth she was doing, she replied, "I give kitty a baff, mum." How could I be mad at that? We still tease her about her unique bathing methods. I can't wait to see how she baths her children someday.

KAREN (USA)
My daughter was at the time 11 but now is 14. My daughter and I were invited to a baby shower -- my daughter has never been to one before. My daughter had asked me, "Mom what do you do at a baby shower?" And I said, "Well, you buy lots of presents for the baby and then you all take a shower with the baby!" Then she said, "Well, then what do you do at a Bridal Shower?" I said, "You buy lots of gifts for the bride to be and then take a shower with her!" She said, "yuk, Mom, I don't think I want to go!" Then she said, "No, I don't beleive you." I said, "Fine call your Grandma and ask her." I got to my mom before she did and told my mom to go along with it and she did. Till this day I laugh over it and tell all my friends about it at work and they had a good laugh or two!!!

From Rahkie (USA)
When I heard the news that my father was going to pass away, I started to cry. I told my 4-year-old daughter not to look at mommy being sad. So she put her hands over her eyes and waited for about 5 seconds and said in her angelic voice, "Mommy, now can I look?"

Shameya (USA)
My daughter was in the kitchen one morning. When I got up, she had all the cups, pots, and pans on the floor. I asked her what was she doing, and she didn't say anything. When I was watching her she went in the refrigerator and got 2 eggs, the pack of bacon, and the grits. Then she put the eggs in the pan, the bacon in the pot, and the grits in the other pot. A few minutes later, she said come and eat your breakfast. We came and on the table was uncooked eggs, bacon, and grits with water! It was so funny!

Cindy (USA)

My daughter, Mary and I go to the park in the stroller almost every day.
Recently, we were just walking on the sidewalk and she got to the corner and wanted to cross the street. I asked her where she was going and she said, 'Wing!' (swing). I told her that if we go to the park, we have to take the stroller because it's too far.
So she immediately did an about-face, ran as fast as her little legs would take her back to our house and jumped into the stroller and looked up at me and said, 'WING!!!'

Mila (Canada)
My daughter Lillian is 13, on student council...works after school and pays for her own piano lessons. She would like to be a foreign exchange student and learn to play the violin. One day she was having a tough time at school. She felt alone and like she didn't fit in and no one like her. I told her to go...' be a friend'. She came home with the results the next day.
Lillian wrote lovely notes to many of the girls.....(without signing her name) about their good qualities and talents, and slipped them into the ventholes of their lockers. Then when they went to their lockers and all began to read these lovely notes....they were happy and smiling and pleasant. Lillian noticed that she felt great too. The energy was high and all the girls had a great day....Lillian no longer felt like an outsider. That's my girl.

From Mallory (USA)
When shopping with my Auntie, she gave me the keys to the car to play. After she put me in my car seat and I still had the keys in my hand...she went to the driver's side door and at that time I locked all the doors and began honking the horn. She kept saying 'Mallory, open the door and let Aunt Kim in in the car. I was only two years old and thought this way great fun. Soon a group of people gathered around the car and everyone tried to coax me to open the lock. I still giggled and honked the horn. Finally, bored I open the locks and we drove home.

Neal (USA)
I am a stay-at-home dad with my 18-month old. She surprised us by starting to potty train. So we bought the chair and "big girl" diapers and gave lots of praise and encouragment with clapping and lots of "yeahs." My wife and I try to "go" at the same time to show her the process -- yes, this means there's no "standing" when she's around. One day she took all her clothes off and was walking around the bathroom and I thought she was going to pee. But because she wasn't going to her potty chair, I figured it was just her wanting to be naked. However, I looked away from what I was doing and she was "standing" in front of the toilet with her hips pushed forward and peed in the floor. She turned to me and clapped and said, "YEAH!"

I guess there must have been a time when I was in a real hurry or didn't know she was watching and she decided this was an easier option.

Rose (Canada)
My Julia was approximately seven months old and crawling since six. One Sunday morning I was actually ready for church early. 'Great!' I thought. 'I'll have time to visit my friends before the service starts.' Wouldn't you know it the little darling upchucks all over her adorable blue dress! So I change her, of course. 'Oh well! We'll still be on time!' NOPE! She dirtied not only her diaper, but her lovely dress too! I changere her again. I dressed her in an adorable white dress with tiny pink rosebuds and pink frills. She wore a matching bonnet and pink satin slippers. Oh yes and the lovely white lace leotards. We were about to head out the back doot to the car; a little late now, when I asked the familiar question, 'Where's Julia?' We set off to find her and discovered that the front door had been left open. There we found her! In th e middle of here cute pink Barbie swimming pool, up to her waist in water! She looked up at me and gave me the most brilliant smile in the world. We took a picture {sorry no equipment to send it}, and removed her from the pool to changer her clothes yet again {If I still had anything left that is} She screamed like death when we removed her from the water because it was her favorite place to be. Julia went to church that Sunday wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

She's ten years old now and the water is still her favorite place to be, although now she just whines when it is time to get out.
Some things just don't change

Gina (USA)
The morning after, playing with water balloons in the swimming pool, my daughter was chewing on one. After being warned that it may pop, she continued to chew around on it...then pop...cold water all over her. I laughed and said "Nothing like a cold bath to wake you up. Huh."

From Theresa (USA)
As I was stepping into my morning shower, my 4-year-old daughter came running into the bathroom, I immediately reached for the closest thing to cover myself (the shower curtain) and my daughter says so proudly "It's okay momma... I'm a WOMAN too!"

Kim (Canada)
Kim (Canada) My son, now seven has always been a curious child and when he was three he asked me a question concerning the female anatomy. I was dressing when he idled into my bedroom and flung himself across my bed, studying my dressing regimen. Being a small breasted woman, I sometimes wear a padded bra to make the most of some of my dresses. As I clasped the bra, he tilted his head and said, "Why do women have to pretend their chests are big?" I explained that we don't have to, but sometimes we like to. And then he asked me why women always cover theirs up at the beach but boys don't. I explained how women's breasts are part of the reproductive system and that anything involved in reproduction is a rather private thing.
He nodded and said, "Yeah. Plus you work so hard to bury them, you wouldn't want those little pimples to grow."
Nope. Sure wouldn't want those little pimples to grow now would I?

Sue (Canada)
After returning from figure skating at the arena one afternoon, my daughter (8), my son (5), and I were eating supper. To break the monotony, I guess, my daughter asks me if I saw the ambulance at the arena. I said that I hadn't and asked her what had happened. She said a friend of hers had fallen from the bleachers and broke her leg. I asked her how she had known that considering we were sitting up in the heated section, away from the bleachers downstairs. She said she saw it all when she went to the bathroom downstairs.

I could tell by the slight grin on her face that she was telling a fib. I said "Are you pulling my leg?"

Her brother looks under the table and says, "It wasn't me Mommy! I'm sitting on my knees!" After explaining to him what "pulling someone's leg" meant, he shared in our laughter!

From Cathy (Canada)

The other day I had the pleasure of taking my four-year-old shopping. As usual, we went to Walmart and the lady who greeted us asked Kaitlynn if she wanted a happy face sticker. She said yes and proceeded to put it on her little hand. We were both kinda cranky that day so I told her everytime she felt cranky to look at her hand and she would feel better. She thought about this for a moment went over to the lady and asked her for another happy face. She came over and put both of them on my hand. "This should help you feel better mommy," she said.

From Shelley (USA)

My niece, Brianna (3), was watching my mother put some cold cream on her face. She asked my mother "Grandma, what is that for?" My mother said, "It makes you beautiful!"

Brianna looked at my mother very straight faced and said, "It doesn't work very well huh?"

From Lisa (USA)
We (my 2 1/2-yr old, Brandon and I) were driving down the street on the way home when he starts shouting, "I want chicken butt butts with the kown!" He just goes on and on repeating, "I want chicken butt butts with the kown!" I had absolutely no idea what a chicken butt butt was (or why he would want one)-- or what a "kown" was. Finally, we passed a big "M" for McDonald's and he said, "Look, the Kown... the Kown!" Oh, kown is Ronald the clown, I determine. He wants to go to McDonald's. Then, it dawns on me... "chicken mcnuggets, with the clown." Chicken McNuggets at Mcdonalds. DOH!! kids say the darndest things!!:)

From Sherry (USA)
My 4-year-old twins were going off to their first day of preschool. My daughter is very outgoing and she ran in the school. But, my son is very shy and walked with me in the school. We were almost to the door and I asked him if he was ok! He responded, "I am fine... are you ok? I thought that was so funny -- then I cried! It is very hard to let your kids go the first time and these are the only kids I have.

From Rachel (USA)
My three-year-old boy wonder was at his grandparents grocery store. We had gotten a little busy with customers and had lost track of what he was doing and where he was doing it. When we went to take the trash out, we just happened to look next door and see my little angel, naked as a jay bird, in the neighbor's bird bath. He was just "take'n a shower".

From John (USA)
In an attempt to break my son from the pacifier, we told him it was for babies and he agreed with us to throw it in the garbage. When he went to bed that night, he quickly ran to the garbage can and peeked to make sure it was still there. The same thing happened the next night, but the garbage had been moved from the house to the garage in the large can. He lifted the lid and peeked. The third day, he watched the garbage truck empty the can and drive away. The fourth day, he was fine.

Months later at our small town's July 4th parade, he sat on my shoulders happy to see all the fun things.

At the end of the parade, the garbage trucks rolled by (it is a small town) and he began crying. We asked what was wrong. He replied, "I hate him." "Why?" we asked. "He took my Nuk!"

From Theresa (USA)
My daughter Michella was 2 1/2 years old. She got very quiet while playing in another room. I then heard a proud little voice shout, "I did it... I did it!" I rushed to the doorway of the room and found her standing on the arms of her rocking chair, shirt sleeves wet to the elbows and hands over the edge of the fish tank. She looked up so proud and said, "I go feeshin" (fishing). Thank goodness the fish weren't biting that day! Needless to say, we sold the fish and the fish tank.

From Lynda (Canada)
My son Dean was just over 2 and my daughter was just a couple of weeks old. My husband was away and I was in the backyard planting part of my vegetable garden. I thought my son was sleeping, but upon finishing my alotted task of the day, I went upstairs to find that indeed, my son had been busy, painting – the back of the original 65-year-old wooden door, the walls, his bed and his hair, with a full tub of Vaseline. It took me a month to get the Vaseline out of his hair.

From Victoria (USA)
My 6-year-old daughter Lilliana came with me and her older brother to pick up his new glasses. The technician helping us started to ask questions that Lilliana quickly answered to show us all how smart she was. The questions were what's your phone number, address and so on. The technician turned to Lilliana and asked, "Do you know your bother's birthday?" Lilliana proudly answered January 7. The technician then asked what year. Lilliana got a puzzled look on her face because she couldn't understand the silly question, to which she quickly answered, "Every year." The technician agreed that the question was silly.

From Maureen (United Kingdom)
A few weeks ago, my youngest daughter Claire went to Greenwich Park in London not far from where we live. She went with my brother, his wife and their three children (Emma, James and Hannah, who is 4 years old). Hannah found a feather from a pigeon while they were feeding the squirrels. When Hannah saw a group of pigeons nearby, she said, "Excuse me." Kneeling down, she added, "Have any of you lost a feather?" Needless to say, they didn't answer, so she kept the feather!

From Lisa (USA)
My 6-year-old daughter came to me one day and said, "Momma, I can count to 100." If it involves learning I encourage her. So I said, "Let's hear it." Aimee said, "One, two, skip a few, 99, 100." I asked who told her that, knowing she didn't learn it from her teacher. She said Bryan (her 9-year-old brother) told her. Naturally, I corrected this information.

From Holly (USA)
When I had to go out of town for a family emergency, I knew I had left my 10-year-old son to do his science project without me. My best friend, who is a teacher, told him she would help but would not do the project for him. After working diligently on his project comparing the percentage of colors in the five different types of M&Ms to the charts that the Mars company provides on the M&Ms Web site, he called me long distance with the wonderful news that he had won first place out of the entire fifth grade. Just goes to show that although he still needs me, he now knows he can also do things on his own.

From Dana (USA)
I always like to find out what my daughters learn each day at school. I first asked Whitney how school went that day, and then proceeded to ask Ashley how she did on her tests. I was interrupted by my 6-year-old daughter jumping up and down saying, "I had a test today." I turned to her and asked, "What did you have a test on today?" Morgan replied, "A big sheet of paper!"

From Lynda (USA)
The night before my husband gave our 4 1/2-year-old daughter, Katelyn, a vanilla ice cream milkshake. Realizing that I wouldn't allow her to have ice cream before lunch the next day, here's Katelyn's roundabout way of trying to ask for it anyway.

"Mom, you know that thing that daddy made for me last night? Well, I'd really like some now, and I'll make it easy for you. You don't have to give it to me with milk, and you don't have to put it in the blender. Just put it (the ice cream) here in this bowl.

From Gina (USA)
One afternoon Tristan, my 2 1/2-year-old son who is in the beginning stages of potty training, said "I'm going to go potty, I big boy now." So I took his pants off and he went over to the potty chair, sat down, and watched himself go. When he was done he said, "I pee-pee some more, I big boy." He sat there, looked down, and when nothing else happened, he said with a confused look on his face, "It not working, I think it needs batteries."

From Fiona (Canada)
When my son Nicholas was 3 he was given a time out for misbehaving. A time out in our house is about 5 minutes in your room with the door shut. But Nicholas' measure of time, like most 3-year-olds', is a little out of whack. Five minutes in toddlers' time equals about 30 seconds – just enough time to realize that your door is shut and you've lost temporary contact with the outside world. Needless to say, on this particular occasion he was very determined not to spend any time in his room and repeatedly opened his door. I had to resort to holding the door shut and he had to resort to pulling it open. But alas, to no avail. This little exchange of brute force by both parties continued for a few minutes and then all of a sudden there was dead silence. I waited a few seconds and almost opened the door to make sure he was alright. And then from the bottom of the door appeared a little white flag being waved back and forth in a slow, monumental motion. He surrendered! Well, needless to say, resistance on my part was futile. I also surrendered to fits of laughter and opened the door – allowing the POW some well-deserved R&R and a huge hug from captain mommy.

From Darlene (USA)
My son Peter must have been learning about skills to remember things recently (mnemonics). The technique includes a hint that says something like "Think of something that reminds you of part of the word or words." He forgot the word tangerine and then used mental gymnastics. He said, "It looks like... an orange, no, but it's not an orangutan. Oh, I know. It's a tangerine." The mental image I conjured up was of the animal, until I thought about it further and realized he was really using the new skills. Orangutan starts with the same first syllable as orange and the last syllable is the same as the first in tangerine. Pretty clever thinking process, actually. I don't think I'll be able to eat a tangerine without thinking of an orangutan, though.

From Jody (USA)
When my daughter first learned to use the potty, she used to ask to use the restroom at every stop. (We still tease her about having to check out the bathroom at every store in our hometown). One evening as Ashton, her father and I were at a large hardware store, she asked to use the bathroom. I pleaded with her to wait until we got home, but she just couldn't. After several minutes of searching, we found the restroom. Luckily, we made it in time, but I knew her father would be anxiously pacing the store looking for us. I hurried her to finish. I redressed her, washed her hands and dragged her out of the restroom while she whined about something. "We need to hurry and find Daddy," I tried to explain. Then I noticed that she was walking funny. "What's wrong? Why are you walking that way," I finally asked. At which she replied, "You put my pants on wrong." Knowing that I hadn't, I kept walking. "They must be twisted or something," I was about to say when I noticed that I had put both of her tiny little legs through the same opening in her pants! Sorry Ashton!

From Darlene (USA)
My dad is a genealogy buff. He proudly shows a genealogical chart to almost anyone who seems interested. While showing it to Allison, my 2-1/2-year-old granddaughter, she asked where her name was. This was only an ancestral chart and ended with my Dad's name. He tried to explain it to her, then proceeded to roll up his chart in a long tube. I typed a miniature chart for her, showed Allison her own name and her new brother's name. That's all she needed. She took the chart and proceeded to roll it up just like her great-grandpa and proudly walked around with her family tree. It's great to see her interested so early.

From Cheryl (USA)
My husband worked overseas. It was time for him to go back. We had gone to bed early as we had to get up at 2:00 a.m. to go to the airport. Our daughter, then age 1, refused to go to sleep. We tried everything to get her to sleep. Finally at 1:00 a.m. we decided to go on to the airport, as there was no way we could sleep now. As soon as we got in the car to go, our daughter had been talking a mile a minute about going to see the planes. In mid-word she let out a snore that shook the car. She finally had fallen asleep.

From Wendy (USA)
One day while I was on my computer, my daughter decided to play "beauty salon." In other words, she hacked her hair (and her baby brother's) good! She had such pretty wavy hair too and I was horrified! When I asked her why she said, "I want to have little hair like in the picture." In the picture she was 5 months old and bald as an onion! On the bright side of it all, the hairdresser fixed their hair to the best of her ability, and Alexa enjoys her "new look!"

From Pam (Canada)
On my son's first day of kindergarten, my husband, daughter and I walked him to school. He was so excited about meeting all the new kids and the teacher. I even managed to make it through the morning without crying. Upon picking him up from school, I asked how he had enjoyed his first day at school. He looked up at me and said in the most serious of 5-year-old voices, "Mom, call my teacher tomorrow and tell her I'm sick." When I asked why, he told me that it was too long (He had been gone for 3 short hours).

From Jean (Canada)
My 4-year-old daughter likes to look pretty. Her two older sisters got their ears pierced and she told them they were pretty. I asked her if she wanted to get her ears done. She said, "No, it hurts too much." I tried to convince her it wouldn't hurt too much. I said, "But don't you want to look pretty like Stacy and Renee?" She looked me straight in the eyes and said, "But mommy, look at me, I already am pretty!" I know I won't have to worry about her self-confidence when she gets older!

From Jane (South Africa)
My 3-year-old son and his friend were playing and all went very quiet, the kind of quiet that causes one to worry. I searched the house and found them in the kitchen, fridge door wide open and 12 eggs all broken and smeared all over the floor and walls – the usual mess you can imagine. I started with my usual bellow, "What on Earth are you doing now?" To which came the sweetest response, "Mummy, we're just looking for the chickens!" Who could be cross now? Not I!

From Beverly (USA)
Michael is my grandson – he is 6 years old. The other day I was helping my oldest grandson Christopher (he's 7) dress for school. I picked a turtle neck for Christopher to wear. Michael came in with hands on hip and demanded to know where his "frog neck" was. Frog, turtle, I guess they all are in the same family. We all enjoyed this laugh.

From Hali (Canada)
I woke up one morning to my daughter having all her Disney movies out of their cases, spread all over the floor, and I was a bit frustrated because there were about 20 of them. As I was walking over to pick them up, she yelled "No, mine." I just stood there for a moment, then she started putting them away. I walked over to notice that she was putting the right movie into the right box just by looking at the writing on the movie. Soon enough she had them all in the boxes and they were all right. Then she looked at me and said "All done." I stood there for a moment, then congratulated her. The next day I took the movies out of their cases and asked her to put them away. Sure enough, they were all in the right boxes.

From Cindy (USA)
My 9-month-old daughter is settling nicely into a regular feeding schedule. Our only problem is when she practices new things she’s learned (like spitting) while she’s eating.

We’ve been trying to encourage an "Ummmm" sound as we give her a spoonful in hopes that it will take her mind off the spitting and also translate to her that all her food is good.

Recently, as I grabbed her bowl from the cupboard to prepare her already-late meal, she looked at me with a big smile and said, "Ummmm!"

She’s translated "Ummmm" to "I’m hungry and I’m going to eat."

From Michella (USA)
My nephew Phil was about 4 years old. He asked his mother if he could have some fireworks. She had told him no. He still wanted them so he got a bright idea. He picked up the phone and called 911. When they answered he said, "My mother is being mean to me." Then someone heard him on the phone and he quickly hung it up. About 5 minutes later there was a knock on the door. It was the cops. They asked if there was a little boy that lived there. His mother said yes (very suspiciously). They wanted to talk with him. When they saw him they asked why he called 911. He said "Because my mom wouldn't buy me some fireworks." They both kind of chuckled but then sat him down talked to him about how he should not call 911 unless it was an emergency. Then he pulled a couple of dollars out of his pocket asked if they could take him to the store and get him some fireworks in the police car! He hasn't called them since.

I asked, "And who might you be?" He stumbled and stuttered and finally said, "I'm the green ripper!" (instead of the more traditional "Grim Reaper"...)

From Kim (USA)
My son was 5 years old. His step-father and I were getting married and I kept stressing to him how wonderful it was to have a whole new family – lots of new aunts, uncles and cousins. We didn't want him to feel like he was the "step-nephew" or that he was less important than the other kids. Apparently I stressed it too much, because in the car on the way to our wedding, he looked at my mom, gave her a big hug, and with tears in his eyes said, "It's too bad you won't be my Grandy anymore, I really loved you!" My mom looked really confused and said, "We'll always be your Grandy and Papa, why wouldn't we be?" He said, "Well, I'm getting a whole new family, so I thought I couldn't have my old family anymore!"

From Carol (Canada)
I have a business that I run from my home. On this particular day I had to work late due to an order that had to be sent out immediately. My son had gone to bed and was waiting for me to tuck him in. I told him that I would be there in a few minutes. A few minutes passed and he yelled, "Come tuck me in!" Once again I replied, "In a minute." This went back and forth for a little while. Finally he said, "Mom." Before he had a chance to finish, I replied once more, "Just one more minute." He yelled, "I just wanted to let you know... that I was growing old waiting for you." Usually I can't get him to go to bed at any decent time. Today of all days, was the day he wanted to sleep. Typical child.

From Al (USA)
My son, his mom and I went to the museum. He was only about 3 years old and was getting tired. So, instead of making him walk the whole way I’d put him on my shoulders when he became tired. At one point he said, "Dad up." So, I picked him up. He had a little taffy sucker, but I didn't think much of it. After a while, I put him back down again. We continued through the museum and we even met up with some friends and talked for a while. My son then had to go to the bathroom, so I took him. After he finished I looked in the mirror only to see a big chunk of taffy clumped in my hair. I had been walking around the whole museum for about an hour without even noticing it.

From Mary (Australia)
My daughter Cathy is a very caring person. At the age 4, she wanted to know where snails lived. Being a very wise parent, I explained that they live in their shells. Those were their homes. The next day, I heard the most heartbroken cries from outside. When I went to investigate, thinking an accident had occurred, I found my daughter sitting on the path surrounded by peeled snails. Asking what was wrong, Cathy looked up and said she could not find their furniture. Not worried that she had just killed numerous snails – no, not my girl – she merely was upset that they had no furniture. Of course we never let her forget that little episode and she now is 25 and likely to teach her children the same thing.

From Jodi (USA)
Just a couple of weeks ago I heard my 7-year-old son Nathan wandering out of his room at about 10:00 at night. I assumed that he was getting up to go the bathroom. I was surprised to see him walk into the living room where my husband and I were watching TV. As he walked in, I looked at him expecting to hear some complaint about not feeling well or his brother bothering him. But he just kept walking into the room and across the floor to the easy chair.

As he began sitting down I asked him what he was doing. He responded in a voice that says, "What are you stupid?" that he was going to the bathroom. At that exact moment I noticed that as he was lowering himself down to the chair he was also pulling down his pajamas and underwear. I jumped up from the couch shouting, "Nathan... Nathan... that's not the toilet, it's the chair!!" He looked up at me dazed and confused as I grabbed him and walked him down the hall to the bathroom. It was all I could do to keep from laughing as I helped him to the toilet.

Once he was safely back in bed, I walked back to the living room and noticed a trail of yellowish spots on the carpet all the way down the hall. I laughed the entire time as I was cleaning the spots. He remembered absolutely nothing of the incident the following morning.

Not two weeks later – I was in the bedroom and my husband was coming down the hall behind me, when I saw Nathan coming out of his bedroom and head into the bathroom. The next thing I heard was my husband in the hall saying, "Nathan... what are you doing? That's not the toilet, it's the bathtub!"

From Kelly (USA)
I have two children, a son who is 13 and a daughter who is 10. This story happened when my son was 4. I was real busy trying to get my kids ready to go to my mother-in-law’s house for dinner when my son noticed that his sister was different from him. So he asked why she was different. So in the quickest, simplest way I could, I started explaining that little boys have a penis, little girls have a vagina and a little more. I thought that I had explained enough to get him going until I could talk to him a little later. He seemed happy with the answer so I continued getting them ready, and we went to my mother-in-law’s for dinner.

When we got to her house he was jumping up and down with excitement and she asked him why he was so excited. So he started telling, "Guess what, guess what Mom told me, I have a penis and Tana has a venis." Well, with a shocked face, my mother-in-law asked, "And just what have you told my grandson?" I'm glad it was family instead of someone else.

We still tease him about penis and Venis.

From Cindy (Canada)
When my daughter Jessie was 2 years old (she's 10 now), she decided to make her own breakfast while I was busy in the other room. I believed she was watching television until I checked on her. She had set up a good china bowl on the flat-lidded garbage can which she was using as her table. She used a water jug as her chair. In the bowl was a mountain of white sugar. A spoon rested in readiness beside the bowl and Jessie was just tipping a bottle of syrup to pour over the sugar when I yelled for her to stop. Fortunately, she did. It would have taken me days to peel her off the ceiling after a breakfast like that!

From Kevin (USA)
A month ago my oldest daughter, Rachel, asked me how to make friends. She is 7-years-old and a little shy. I figured the best way to handle this question was to tell her to just introduce herself when she meets someone new. The question didn't come up again, and I didn't give it another thought.

Last weekend I took my two daughters to the lake a couple of blocks from our house. There are two parks located around the lake, and since it was a nice day, we visited them both. As with all parks on days like this there were lots of children around for my daughters to play with.

I was helping my youngest daughter, Sydney, down the slide when something caught my attention. I got the warmest feeling as I heard Rachel tell all the kids, "My name is Rachel, and I'm 7, what's your name?" It worked better than I had ever imagined, and before long she knew every kid's name, and they were all playing tag!

The little things in life can make a difference!

From Gary (USA)
My son was the pitcher for his cub scout softball team. During one game he was pitching and the first batter struck out. The second batter hit a fly ball and it was caught for an out. At that point, my son quickly ran off the field. Everyone was wondering what was going on and we watched as he ran to a group of bushes not far from the field. He went into the bushes and relieved himself. He came back looking sort of confused because all of the parents and players were watching him. He thought there were three outs, not two. He then picked up the ball and proceeded to pitch like nothing had happened.

From Laura (USA)
My 15-month-old son Darby told his first official joke about a month ago. My husband arrived home from work one day stressed out, tired and basically just needing time to relax (in other words, he was grumpy). After dinner I took Darby in the bathroom for his bath where he has a Sesame Street bath mat that has pictures of several of the show's characters on it. As we were waiting for the tub to fill, Darby started giggling and then he looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and pointed to the picture of Bert (the grumpy one) on the bathmat and loudly whispered "Daddy" which was followed by more giggling. This unexpected display of our son's developing personality was enough to bring a smile even to my husband's face.

From Kimber (Canada)
My two year old son was the typical two year old, who tried to be very independent and refused to not only let you help, but was also unwilling to take your advice in making life easier for him. One day we were getting ready to go out, and as always Joshua refused to let us help him put on his shoes. He started to get very frustrated and cranky. When we realized what the problem was, we told him very calmly that he was putting his shoes on the wrong feet. A few more minutes passed and Joshua stared crying. I looked at him and said, "Joshua you are putting your shoes on the wrong feet". He looked at me then his shoes and then back at me, and with great big brown eyes welling with tears he said, "But Mommy, these are the only two feet I have!". Now six years later we still chuckle over this.

From Renee (USA)
When my twins (a boy and a girl) were about 2, they figured out there were differences between boys and girls and wanted an explanation as to what those differences were. My husband and I told them the very short version...you know, the "boys have ding-dings and girls have wee-wee's" version, because we didn't think they were ready for the long, technical version.

A couple of days later we were talking to my husband’s parents in Florida and our daughter just had to talk to grandpa. Guess what she just had to tell him? "Grandpa did you know that boys have ding-dings and girls have wee-wees?" That same day she walked in on her father in the bathroom and wanted an explanation of why daddy’s ding-ding was bigger than her brother’s. Guess maybe we should have waited a couple of years to give them even the basic information, but the questions came up because I would not let the two of them take a bath together any more.

From Judith (Germany)
My son Sebastian was about 5 years old and he surprised us with astonishing ideas every day. One morning he asked me, "What is the use of this palate bone?" I replied, "I don't know." So he explained: " ...because if we wouldn't have it, the brain would fall in our mouth."

From Chella (USA)
I was distracted on the phone while my two year old daughter was thinking of something she could get into. I thought she was in the bedroom with her sister, but she had wondered out, made her way to the refrigerator and found the sour cream. She went to her bedroom, got a chair and moved it to the end of the hall. She sat in the chair, opened the sour cream and proceeded to paint the paneled walls white. When I caught her I punished her with a time out, but as soon as she was allowed to be up, she went back to the fridge, got the sour cream again, went to her sister's room and painted her comforter.

From Les (USA)
When my son Vic was 4 years old (he's almost 20 now), we took a bus trip to visit his grandparents. Due to the distance, the bus was equipped with a toilet. As any child of 4, he was fascinated with toilets. Before the bus even left the station, he not only decided he had to use the bathroom, but also that he was old enough to do it by himself. The one thing that had slipped my mind was the fact that the light in those bathrooms are operated by the door lock. Vic, you have to understand, did not like the dark, and you can well imagine what ensued. He quickly learned that if he unlocked the door, without even opening it, it quickly shut the light off and left him in dark. So, to combat his fear of the dark, he quickly locked the door again, and became afraid again. This time because he wanted his dad, who was on the other side of the door. No amount of coaxing would pursuade him to unlock that door. The bus was already 10 minutes late in leaving the station while everyone tried their turn at coaxing Vic to unlock and open the door. No way. He wouldn't do it. Nowhere in the station could we find a key for the door. Finally, the bus driver managed to find a key for the bathroom window. He unlocked the window and crawled through enough to unlock the door, permitting us on the other side to open it and rescue Vic from his dilemma. Then, we had the job of extricating the bus driver from the window because yes, he got stuck. Vic had become the hit of the trip and everyone stopped to say hello and goodbye as they exited at their respective stops. Not one person became angry over the situation, even with the bus being 45 minutes late because of this fiasco. I'm sure many families have had a chuckle or two listening to the story of the little boy who got stuck in the bathroom.

From Bob (USA)
I have two sons, 9 and 7. They're only a year-and-a-half apart, so most of the trouble they get into is together. My wife and I told both of them that putting silverware and aluminum foil in the microwave was not a good thing to do, especially after what happened the first time they tried that.

Unfortunately for us, that warning didn't hold true for cordless phones. They were on the phone one day, talking to a friend, when they decided that they'd like to know what the microwave oven sounded like while it was running. Naturally, being too big to fit in the oven themselves, they had their friend listen for them. So, they opened the door, and in went the phone. After about five seconds, the phone stopped working. Permanently. I think we'll have to be more specific in telling them what's not to go into the microwave from now on.

From Bev (USA)
My beautiful daughter, Jennifer (age 3), has always liked our son Joshua (age 1) from birth. Her first words about him were, "Oh, Mom he’s pretty!" Throughout this last year she has been so good to him. Jenny always includes him in everything that she does and he has really taken a liking to her every move.

Josh didn’t mind when Jenny opened all of his birthday presents and played with them first, nor did he mind when she blew out his candle. He was more than willing to share all of his frosting which he was removing from the cake. And it was today that I saw how much of Jenny is in Josh. I also have noticed that there is a lot of love in my three-year-old and I pray that it only grows this next year and that she may only feel love in return for the rest of her life.

Thank you Jennifer, Sweetpea!

From Greg (USA)
When our 2½-year-old, Grayson, is given a "time out," we make him sit at the bottom of the stairs in the hallway. As most parents do, when he’s being naughty we use his first and middle names, primarily when he’s headed for the steps.

Recently, we were trying to get him to tell us his name. When asked, he said "Grayson." We then asked for his full name, to which he replied, "Grayson Edward." We said, "What comes after Grayson Edward?"

He proudly said, "Grayson Edward Go-Sit-On-The-Steps!"

From Albert (USA)
My girlfriend, my son and myself were attending a graduation ceremony for my girlfriend's sister. My son was being really well behaved when all of a sudden, in a loud voice, he asked, "Momma? Who farted?!" After that, you could see everyone in the whole auditorium trying to hold the laughter in. She turned completely red in the face.

From Damian (USA)
My little boy, Justice, who is 2 years old, loves to go to McDonalds playland and climb around and go down the slide repeatedly until he is exhausted. One day, while there playing as usual, he saw a little girl about his age and walked over to say "hi." The little girl was very shy and didn’t seem interested in making a new friend. So, Justice tried to coax her by offering her a french fry (his favorite food). She wasn’t buying at all, and remained in the pit of plastic balls, content with playing by herself. Although, she kept a watchful, flirting eye on Justice.

Determined to win her friendship, he decided to place a few fries on a piece of paper at the edge of the pit stairs. As she topped the stairs to leap into the pit, she noticed the fries and stood there wondering if she should take them. As she reached down, carefully looking around to see if anyone was watching, Justice leaped out holding the container of fries and shouted "Want french fry?" She jumped back a bit startled, then started laughing. Justice joined in and they played together for the next hour. What a smoothie…now it’s french fries, next it will be flowers and perfume.

From Ryan (USA)
When my son Ethan was three years old, he got one of those small containers from a 25-cent machine full of "slime." He was given a long list of do's and don'ts because we were apprehensive about giving him the stuff. After Ethan watched the scene in the movie "Ghostbusters" where they put some slime-looking stuff in the toaster and the toaster proceeds to dance to music, he decided to make our toaster dance. Well, putting slime in the toaster wasn't one of the explicit "don'ts," because he did. Needless to say, our toaster didn't dance.

From Edward (USA)
It was just a few weeks after we got our computer when I realized it truly belonged to my 4-year-old son. I had promised Neil we would play one of his new games as soon as I made some quick adjustments in our online checking account. But I had one problem: I couldn't find where the checking program was on the computer! After several minutes of patiently waiting for me to figure things out, Neil let out an exasperated sigh. He grabbed the mouse from my hand and said, rather pointedly, "Here, Dad. Let me do it." Within seconds, the program was open, I made my changes and Neil was opening his long-awaited game. Now if I could just get him to pay the bills, too.

From Shaunna (USA)
"Girls are icky! Only boy stuff is cool!" So says my 5-year-old son, Christopher. The other day, Christopher gave me a great laugh while we were celebrating a family birthday. I let him and his brother pick out the kind of cupcakes they wanted for the party. Christopher chose the Yellow Mighty Morphin Power Ranger cupcake. He thought that was cool. Well, Christopher isn't allowed to watch that kind of stuff on TV so later he realized that he wasn't altogether sure whether the Yellow Power Ranger was a boy or a girl. He asked me about it at the party. I replied, "Well, Christopher I think they all do the same stuff, so does it really matter if it's a boy or a girl?" He did not answer. Later, he asks me again, "Mom, is the Yellow Power Ranger a boy or a girl?" To which I answered, "Let's pretend that it's a girl. Do you like it any less?" Christopher replied, "Well, can she transform?" I said, "Of course, they all do that." Without missing a beat he asks, "Well, then can she transform into a boy?"

From Adams (USA)
Nicki, my 2-year-old daughter, loved syrup. She would (when my back was turned) go to the refrigerator and get the syrup, pull the tab out, go behind the couch and sit and suck on it like a baby bottle. One day I caught her behind the couch again with the syrup. She began running from me, made her way to the other side of the couch and into the kitchen. "Ah ha!" I said. "I’ve got you now!" She couldn't get away. I had her cornered. She was laughing and crying (because she thought she had gotten away). Now she didn't know what to do. She was determined that she wasn't going to give up her syrup bottle without a fight. I proceeded to grab the bottle (all the while she is still sucking on it). As I reached for the bottle, she started squirting it all over the floor and my cabinets as hard and fast as she could, (trying to empty the bottle) as if to say, "If I can't have it, no one can." She tried to sit on it, twist it and numerous other means to empty it and keep it from me. Ultimately, I ended up as the winner, but boy did I have a mess to clean up. Terrible twos last only a year, right?

From Michella (USA)
I was talking on the phone with my sister-in-law and Nicki (my 2-year-old daughter) went wondering off to the bedroom to play or so I thought. I couldn't see the kitchen from where I was and I heard someone opening the refrigerator door. I told my sister-in-law to hold on. When I got up to look in the kitchen, I could see tiny, little feet showing under the door. I said "Nicki, what are you doing in the fridge?" She said "nutin’ mama." As I moved closer to the door, I saw that she had her hands on a full carton of eggs. Before I could get out "No," she had picked them up with one hand. Needless to say each and every one of them went tumbling to the floor.

From Dennis (USA)
Our lives are very exciting at times with our 4 children -- it’s hustle and bustle most of the time. My youngest son, who at the time was 8 months old, loved phones. One day as my wife was cleaning the house she noticed a policeman flying up our driveway. Her first thoughts were my safety. She ran to the door and the officer replied in a hurried voice, "911 call." Out of disbelief she said, "No not here." The officer then replied, "Is your phone on the hook?" "Why yes," she replied. But as she looked over, our son was intently having a conversation on the phone with who knows who. My wife expressed our apologies to the officer, holding her laughter back for the officer did not find any humor in this emergency situation. From then on we knew that this little blonde-haired, blue-eyed youngster would give us lots to write about in his baby book.

From Chella (USA)
Laundry was piling up, so I went to do the laundry and left the girls (2 and 5 years old at the time) watching their favorite video. Nicki (the 2-year-old) has always been a very curious child, bored easily with the video. After a little while, I heard both girls laughing so hard that they were almost screaming. My first thought was that they were getting along very well. The laughter then changed to a I-know-I-am-going-to-get-into-trouble laugh. As I proceeded down the hall very slowly, I feared what I might see as I approached the corner. I heard little feet running and then a swosh... with lots of laughter afterwards. I never expected to see what I did. Nicki had taken a new tub of butter out of the refrigerator, dug in with both hands and smeared it all over the floor. As P.J. (the 5-year-old) went to the kitchen, she slipped by accident and was happy with what she had discovered. So, she joined her sister in covering the floor. They began their run in the living room, leaving a big trail of butter behind them on the carpet and sliding all the way across the linoleum. Wow! They were having such a good time…until they saw me! They both stopped in their tracks and just stood there looking at me like the cat that ate the mouse. As I bathed them, I found butter where butter should never be. It took a lot of scrubbing on the girls and the floor to clean up the mess.

From Mike (USA)
My wife called from work for me to come pick her up. I got our 2-year-old ready to go on what was a very cold night. We both got in the car but it wouldn't start due to a loose battery cable. I got out of the car, popped the hood and remedied the problem. As I was walking back to the driver’s side, I heard a "click". I almost lost my breath. My daughter had locked the doors from the inside and I had left the keys in the ignition. I thought, "OH NO…What am I going to do?" I said "P.J., honey, unlock the doors for Daddy so we can go pick up Mommy from work." All she would do is laugh as she sat in the drivers seat and pretend to drive. She proceeded to jump from the front to the back having a blast, completely ignoring my pleas to unlock the doors. My sister-in-law (Theresa) was visiting and came out to try to help me convince my two year old to unlock the doors. She was determined not to unlock them. We even asked her to roll the windows down… Theresa said, "It’s really getting cold out here and we are soon going to have to break the window!" I thought of one last option, and asked P.J. to unlock the sunroof. To my surprise she unlocked it. I crawled on top of the car and unlocked the doors. Theresa hurried to open the doors and grabbed the baby.

From Theresa (USA)
The other day I was trying to get my 3-year-old, Michella, to eat shrimp. I was told that she loves to eat it when she’s at grandma’s house. She wasn’t eating, so I called grandma and asked her to explain to Michella that this is the same thing that she eats at grandma’s. Michella seemed to understand. She hung up and said, "I love shrimp mommy!!" I said, "Good! Here you go, let’s eat dinner now." She replied: "Nope. I only love shrimp over at my grandma’s house, not at your house."

From Debbie (USA)
I have two very unique daughters. My oldest one is 14 (Monet) and the youngest is 10 (Hanna). Our family loves to go to the beach and my husband (Monte) loves to fish. He would always keep a 5-gallon bucket filled with water. He’d put some sand in the bottom of it for Monet to put her "beach findings" in. She was about 2 years old, she did not particularly like the water and one day we were just watching her and she was sitting in the bucket of water! This was her "ocean!" She would always continue to do this, when we were at the beach until she was about 9 or 10 and she got stuck in it!

From Jenny (USA)
One afternoon Boyce, my two-year-old son, and I were visiting his nana at the hospital (where she works). While rushing to catch her before she left for lunch, Boyce announced he urgently had to go to the bathroom. So we took a detour to the bathroom. After I rushed Boyce to finish, I took him off the potty and quickly sat down myself. When I had finished, we washed our hands and exited the bathroom. As we were walking down the hall my son shook my hand and with tears in his eyes said, "But I don't want to go see nana with my pants still down." In my rush, I had forgotten to pull up his pants!

From Joanie (USA)
My daughter's name is Megan. And I just wanted to say that I am very proud of her. She is a fourth-grade student who is on the A honor roll. She was recently honored as student of the month at her school. Mrs. Young, her teacher, says she is polite, mannerly and a model student. I feel I have something to shout about and wanted to share it with other parents!!

From Monina (USA)
My daughter was nearly two (she's 9 now) when this happened. I had gained some weight when I had her and I was trying to lose it. One day I came home for lunch and found her eating only half of a boiled egg and drinking a glass of orange juice. I asked the babysitter why and she told me that it's all she wanted and she wouldn't eat anything else. So I asked my daughter why she wasn't eating properly. I started telling her the reasons why she should eat certain foods. To my utter amazement she responded with so much relish and with her two hands on both sides of her hips, "don't force me to eat mom, because I'm trying to lose my weight - can't you see I'm trying to be slim and sexy!" Her response floored me and from then on I never let her hear me complain about my weight.

From Liza (Canada)
As parents of a very verbal (as of today) 2-year-old, every day is full of surprises. One of our most notable experiences was when we were standing in line at the supermarket and our son politely started to grill the woman behind us about what she had in her basket. He was making comments like "Oh, I like that" as she unloaded the basket. And when she put up a bag of chips he said in a rather loud voice, "that's not good for me, I like it!" The woman in line behind us was very surprised to find out she was having a very intelligent conversation with a child who was not yet 2 years old. After we had finished packing up our groceries, our son ended with a "thank you for the talk, lady." He was rewarded with a big smile and a "you're welcome - such a smart and polite little boy."

From Cheryl (USA)
I was teaching my 2-year-old Nikki to use the potty when my mother unexpectedly dropped by. I was doing the laundry on another floor and my mother decided to take my daughter to the local K-mart. She had told her to use the potty before they left, which she did. When they got there, Nikki started to sing and dance around the store (in a dress). People began to stare and laugh. My mom looked down to see that Nikki had forgotten to put her underpants back on. My mom was always very adamant about making sure that her grandchildren were properly dressed from that day on.

From T.J. (USA)
My daughter Brittany is 18 months old and she is such an angel. She was in our kitchen, and the cabinet under the sink happened to be open because someone was using something from it. Rather than exploring what was in the cabinet, as I would have expected her to do, she closed the cabinet door, and then said to herself "good girl" and smiled. It was the cutest thing!

From Tom (USA)
Derek, my 6-year-old son, started taking piano lessons in April of 1996. In the fall of that year, I kept hearing a song being played over and over: 'Ode to Joy.' I thought to myself - he really loves it. Then, my 5-year-old son, Jackson, came in and asked if I thought he could play great? Much to my surprise, it was Jackson all the time. Jackson can play by ear and was playing 'Pumpkin Boogie,' a song in Level 2B of the Faber series, shortly after that! It is amazing enough that my eldest son, now 7, is on Level 5 after only a year and a half of lessons. But it is even more amazing that my middle son (now 6) is on Level 4 after only eight months of lessons (he finally started reading music in March of this year). I do have a third son, Grant, who is 3. What are the possibilities?

From Eileen (USA)
When our fraternal twins were about 8 months old and my husband was out of town, I too, accidentally locked myself out of our apartment-taking out the garbage! Our daughter had a head full of dark hair; and her brother just blond peach fuzz. He had been known to grab her hair and, sure enough, when I looked in the window, there they were in the playpen, he with a handful of her hair and she crying up a storm and nothing to grab to retaliate. Of course he didn't realize he was hurting his sister and there was nothing I could do. In desperation, I went to a small market a half-block away and called my dad at his work. He came to the apartment and somehow broke in and I was able to rescue my poor daughter. I guess she forgave him - or more likely had no memory of the incident - as they are now adults and get along very well.

From Lois (USA)
My husband was at work one evening, and I was in the master bedroom on our lower level. It was after dark and our daughters were upstairs in their rooms. It sounded as though the kids were shoving furniture around, so I called for them a couple of times with no results. So I went and found the children huddled in the hallway claiming there was a face in one of the bedroom windows. After assuring them that their second-floor windows were way to high for anyone to be looking in, I walked over to the window to be met be a face suddenly appearing on the other side. I 'm not sure who was more frightened, the kid in the window or me. I didn't recognize him so I called the police. They determined the kid had been moving a cement rain drain along the wall of the house to get it under the window and that was the noise that I had been hearing! After that I was sure to remind the girls that they absolutely had to make sure their curtains were closed at night from then on - and we had no more problems.

From Jean (USA)
I was visiting my daughter and grandson - who happened to have a beautiful home right next to a babbling brook that made a delightful sound. As I tucked my 3-year-old grandson into bed on a gently warm night I decided to leave open for awhile the door (which led outside and was next to his bed) so he could feel the night breeze. As I finished tucking him in I noted a surprised expression on his face and he asked quizzically "all night too?" he had just realized the water in the brook did not stop running when daylight ended.

From Elaine (Japan)
My daughter, Jayme, was 2 years old (she's 14 now) and her sister was 10 months old. My husband was away on business and we lived in a second floor apartment. I had gone outside to put the garbage in the dumpster downstairs. Jayme had been practicing to lock the door and accomplished this while I was gone. When I tried to get back in the apartment it was locked and Jayme didn't know how to unlock it. I went to a neighbors and called the police. The police didn't think this was an emergency and said they'd get there when they could. I finally convinced a neighbor to climb up the balconies and break into my sliding glass door. When he got inside my apartment, my 10-month-old was still in her crib, but my Jayme was running around the house having a ball. She had taken off all her clothes and was running through the house naked!

From Jan (USA)
I had been potty training my daughter for weeks with little success. Finally, I sat her down on the toilet and told her that she had to tell Mommy when she had to go. As this sweet toddler is sitting there with me on my knees in front of her, she looks intently into my eyes as I repeated again "you have to tell Mommy when you have to go." By watching the expression on her face I just knew she was taking it all in. She was so focused on me. I was so pleased. When I ended my speech, I waited to see what wonderful words of acknowledgement would follow that look. And her response to all of my pleadings? "You gotsa big eyes."

From Terri (USA)
My mom and I  were shopping with my little brother, who at the time was 3 years old. We were waiting in line when Michael said he was thirsty. So my mom let him out of the cart and he ran over to the bubbler.  He took off his favorite blue baseball cap and put it under the running water. Then he tried to drink the water out of his cap.

From Kim (South Africa)
I have a 4-year-old who has a lovely sense of humor. One day while he was sleeping over at his grandparents, my mother asked him to answer the telephone for her because she was busy doing something. On the telephone, was his grandfather who spoke to him a little and then asked if he could speak to Gran.  After a short silence on the telephone my father heard a little voice saying "Hello, this is grandmother speaking." He played along with his game a little but could not help laughing and of course told everyone the story.

From Kay (USA)
When my younger daughter, Megan, was 4 years old (she is now 17), I had bought my mom a mother's ring for Christmas and told Megan to keep it a secret.  And she did, until my mom was opening the gift.  As my mom unwrapped the package, she said, "Oh, I wonder what it is?"  Megan, innocently and with a lot of enthusiasm, blurted out, "It's a ring, Grandmom!"  We still chuckle over it.

From Kim (Canada)
On Halloween my husband and I took our 6-year-old trick-or-treating in Grandma's neighborhood. He was having a wonderful time, running from house to house, saying please and thank you at every door, until one. The woman opened the door when she heard the small dinosaur calling for a treat. My husband and I waited down at the sidewalk. Suddenly my son's voice rang out clearly enough for us to hear from where we were. "You have got to be kidding!" he stated. I called out to him asking if there was a problem. He nodded profusely and said "She expects me to sing a song! Have you ever heard such a thing?" I laughed and remembered those silly requests from my own childhood and encouraged him to sing. He sang about pumpkins, thanked her for the treat and walked away shaking his head and said "I just don't get some people."

From Dariusz (USA)
I was traveling on a train with my youngest son, Michael, in my hometown of Warsaw, Poland. Michael saw several soldiers wearing military berets and decided he had to have one for himself. Growing up in Poland, I knew the military was highly regarded and getting the beret would be nearly impossible, so I told him to forget about it. But Michael insisted that we could find one somewhere, so I phoned several friends that had fathers who were in the military to see if they might have one. It turns out that they are sold in military surplus stores that are open to the public. So not only did Michael get his beret, but we bought a few for the family back home. And I bought a Rogatywka (an officer's cap) for myself. My how times have changed in Poland.

From Janie (USA)
My daughter Amanda was about 21-months-old when this happened. We were at church and she had to use the bathroom, and I didn't really notice. She had apparently taken off  her pull-up diaper because we found it in the hall. But the funny thing was that I had turned around after talking to someone and Amanda was running around with her dress up and no pull-up diaper on. It wasn't until then that I realized that she had to use the bathroom.