Out of the mouths of babes

2 spring to mind, a cute one and a darkly funny one.

* Driving along in winter and Mini V asked why the car had a snowflake lit up on the dash, I explained it was to let me know that there was a risk that the roads might be icy, she said “Will it show a picture of a rainbow if there’s going to be one?”

* Walking around Tesco, with Mini V in the trolley, trying to keep up with Mrs V who kept disappearing and reappearing at the ends of different aisles.  I said “Shall we chop mummy’s legs off?”, she exclaimed “NO!” then thought for a second and said “We haven’t got a knife.”

Out of the mouths of babes…and all down the back of your jacket.

Or in both beds in your campervan at 2am on a campsite in Devon while it’s pouring with rain outside

Or in both beds in your campervan at 2am on a campsite in Devon while it’s pouring with rain outside

Or down the back of the bride’s dress as she gets a last cuddle before we leave the wedding early.

I have saved some of the things my girls said when they were younger so I can embarrass them with it in later life (they are now 15)….

******

Child 1:

(Looking at a history book about the war just before her 5th birthday and asking who are the baddies)

Daddy: The baddies (the Germans) wear crosses around their necks

Child 1: Do the goodies wear ticks?

******

Child 1:

(Watching mummy eating toast with seeds in the bread)

Child 1: What are those?

Mummy: Seeds

Child 1: If we plant them can we grow a toast tree?

******

Child 1:
‘Daddy, how did the dinosaurs all die’?

‘Well, a big comet flew in from space and hit them all on their heads’

‘Ohhh. That must have hurt. Did they go to Dinosaur Hospital’?

******

Child 2:

On seeing a plane high in the sky: I couldn’t get my head in there, it’s too

small.

******

Child 2:
The Three Kings rode into Bethlehem on Cannibals.

At a village fete in Northants my then 4yo daughter gave a word-perfect rendition of the limerick ‘There was an old of Ealing’  ….to the vicar’s wife.

Not quite ‘out of the mouths’ but…
…I was taking my 5 year old grandson on a GolF Ball Hunt in the woods next to the local golf ball. I was kicking the leaves around and busy looking on the floor for gold balls when I realised he was wandering around looking in the trees.

“You won’t find them in the trees” I said
“There’s one” he says as he points up at a golf ball wedged in the fork of a branch.

When I was about 7, I was out riding my bike with one of my cousins, who is four years older than me.  He fell off his bike, the chain came off, and he couldn’t get it back on, at which point, he pronounced that his bike was a “stupid c***”.  I had never heard the word before and assumed it meant that something was broken.  Later that day, I was at my cousin’s house when my aunt said that her washing machine had broken down.  I piped up ” your washing machine is a stupid c***”.  I got yelled at for a bit and then asked where I had heard that word.  I told her that my cousin had said it.  He got quite a spanking.

Many years ago, we were in a bar watching a Grand Prix, German friend asks first born (about 4) if he liked Michael Schumacher, straight away he answered

“No, he’s a dirty cheating Nazi”.

Friend laughed it off and child later re-briefed not to repeat things he had heard, wasn’t from me so not sure where he had picked it up from.

A few months after an Easter holiday in Wales. As we drive from England into Scotland at Gretna there is a gap between the signs country signs. The whole car cheers both England and Scotland signs, with suitable pause in between.

A suitable ‘brain cogs turning’ time later, smallest_OAB aged around 4 asks ‘is the gap Wales’?

Not exactly cute, but….

We were in a bookshop near to Christmas buying my wife a book she wanted and which my daughter insisted on carrying.

As we reached the front of the queue I said the her ‘Give the book to the lady so we can pay for it’

‘That’s not a lady, he has short hair’

‘It is, some ladies choose to have short hair’

‘Well, it makes her into an ugly looking lady’

Book was paid for, pocketed and out of the shop in record time with apologies profuse.

**

Slightly cuter, my son announced one day ‘Dad; your mouth is where jokes go to die’  I have searched and asked if that’s from a film or something; apparently not and he made it up on his own.

I hoped this thread would deliver. My favourites thus far are the L-plates and the toast tree, actual LOL at both of those.

My sister trying to teach her middle son to say please and thank you:-

That reminds me of one of my own.

I was at infant school, so I’d have been maybe 6 or 7. Back in the days before Thatcher Thatcher Milk Snatcher, you got a little carton of milk at a breaktime. After school, you could go and ask for another from the day’s leftovers.

Now, I liked milk – my first home was a dairy farm for gods’ sake – but I liked it fresh and cold, not after it’d been sat on a table in a sunny office for six hours. I left school for the day, got collected by my folks who went “where’s your milk?” and sent me back to get some.

I sloped off back into school, went to the office, asked “can I have some milk?”

The teacher said, “what’s the magic word?”

I had no idea what she was on about. I’d been taught to say please and thank you but not using that term. So I blurted out, “abracadabra?”

I got a bollocking for being cheeky and was sent packing, crying, bereft of milk which I didn’t want anyway but was child-logic distraught when I didn’t get it.

Another from me as a kid.

At my grandparents, playing I Spy with the family.  “I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with L.B.”

I had them going for ages.  I was getting increasingly excited at my spot as everyone failed to guess it.  In the end they conceded defeat.

At which point I proudly puffed out my chest, pointed at the table and declared, “Lastic Band.”

Child 1: If we plant them can we grow a toast tree?

I mean, I’m going to try, just in case

Or down the back of the bride’s dress as she gets a last cuddle before we leave the wedding early

Or into a shoe in a shoe shop & hurriedly put back on the shelf without fessing up to the staff*

*By ex wife, I wasn’t there m’lud

Driving past the White Horse* in High Wycombe, youngest wanted to know why the sign outside said “Exotic Dangers” and what were they?

* Low rent strippers pub

Toddler on the train just now has announced to the whole carriage that daddy has gone to the toilet,  and that if mummy needs to go she will go with her and hold her handbag.

I immediately thought of this thread.

In the queue for the checkout at ASDA one time, there was a kid in the baby hammock fold-down seat thing in the trolley in front of me.  Points at me and yells “NAKED!”  Gods know where that came from but I’m surprised the authorities weren’t informed.

I used to take my kids to a mums and toddlers group at the local Baptist Chapel. I worked shifts so was often there for various sessions, and there was of course an element of novelty based around cute blond/e boy-girl twins and a doting dad. A lot of the mums there used to make quite a fuss of us/me, and one of the supervisors was married to a cop on my team.

One day said supervisor returned from taking my lad to the toilet and said, with an obvious gleam in her eye “James says you have a very big tail.” I muttered something about it being relative then realised the gleam in her eye may have been ironic, as her husband was nicknamed “Crutch”. Apparently he was hung like a draught excluder, and had actually been given a round of applause in the showers at training school.

On the motorway, me, wife, 2 daughters.

Some dick cuts is up, so I say “what is he, girls?” to a joyous chorus of “he’s a moron!”

My wife said that we shouldn’t be rude about other drivers who make mistakes, and that she doesn’t call people morons, does she?

Cue little’un in the back “mum says ‘fuggerell'”

*************

My brother (or maybe even one of my parents; they were definitely there) once told my daughter (maybe 9 or 10) that he and I had  grown up in Stockton

“Isn’t that the bag of skin that holds your testicles?”

At a play ground with 8 and 10 year old daughters of a friend who was in hospital.  They suggest a form of tag/catch. I’m duly caught and dragged to the ground. Then it’s my turn… Catch the 10 year old who then yells “he’s not my father”…. To be fair it did make me let go sharpish…

A slightly awkward one here, but I was at the swimming pool with my girls when they were about 6 or 7 – we were all getting changed in a family cubicle and one of them said (quite loudly) ‘daddy, don’t put your willy in my face’.

I’ve almost certainly posted this before, and it’s topic-adjacent rather than on topic. But it’s my thread so sod it, this absolutely slayed me.

I’m walking back to the car across ASDA car park. I always park at the back because the car park is a prick.

Heading my way towards the store is a youngish-looking couple with two little kids. The dad has a little girl on his shoulders, the mum is holding the hand of a slightly older-looking lad.

The dad pipes up, “hey kids, who’s that over there? Is it granny?  Is it?” and points to somewhere behind me.

Now, granny must be awesome, because the kids promptly lose their goddamn minds. The little girl screams “Granny! Granny!” The lad is dragging his mum forwards, shouting likewise.

Dad: “Is it?  Is it granny? Is it? Is that granny over there?”

By now the girl is bouncing up and down on dad’s shoulders like Tickle Me Elmo, squealing “grannygrannygrannygranny!!”

Dad: “Is it? Is it granny?”

The lad has torn away from his mum’s grip and is away across the car park like Usain Bolt. “GRANNY! GRANNY!”

Dad: “Is that granny?!” (boing, boing, boing, granny)

Just as our paths cross, mum turns to dad.

Mum: “Is it granny?”

Dad, very quietly: “No.”

As previously mentioned, my partner is WFH as a childminder for 2-3 year olds.

One of the girls trips over S and F.  I’ve just been down to get a drink and she’s got herself ‘stuck’ behind the sofa.  So clear as you like she announces this fact, “I’M F***!”

There’s quite a gap in age between me and my two younger siblings. I was babysitting them and my sister, about seven was talking absolute bobbins. I told her that we don’t tell lies to our little brother, about five. She put her hands up and said “ignore him James it’s okay to lie in this house”

3year old in the car:

“Daddy, can we find some bees tomorrow?”

“Errr, yes. Where?”

“The Carribbean”.

“Errr, OK. And what will we do with them?”

“We’ll feed them to flowers. And then we’ll feed them to you.”

“Ok.”

“And the sheep will eat your face.”.

“What have you been watching with your Mother?”

In the car on our way to a few days camping, wife checked forecast which had improved since the last time she checked, said “Looks like Summer’s finally here!”

4 y.o, from the back, with genuine delight: “Yay! Summer, my favourite day of the year!”

Another one…

Putting boots on and agitated my dodgy Achilles. I wince and suck through my teeth and just as I am about to start the battle, 3 year old says “F#@&ING hell, Dad?”

I say no and admonish her Mother.

======================

Me, age 8 on the bus into town, sat with school friend, Mum with his Mum. Bus stops and driver disappears into bus station. Friend asks “Wonder where he’s gone?”.

I respond, to the quiet bus “Maybe he’s gone to get tw#£ed?”

Mum spins around and doesn’t know whether to throttle me or hide.

MY nephew around 8 yrs old.  We were on a small plane and I am a very unhappy flyer.  After we landed – me full on white knuckle grip on the armrests he loudly said ” perhaps you should have read this first”” and handed me the emergency info sheet.  I think everyone on the plane laughed.  Little bastard

Our have come out with the usual “that lady looks like a man” and some others.

One that sticks in my mind is in CentreParks in Belgium for our eldest’s 3rd birthday she got frustrated at something and shouted “**** it!”. when we asked where she had heard that she tried claiming Maui says it when he meets Moana in the film.  We then watched that bit so she could show us and at that point she admitted “Ok it was Mummy, she uses that word a lot”

This also has to be a classic from the telly

There was another time when we were on holiday, I think I’d be 10. We were playing around the pool when a kid dropped a log and it was floating around. There was another kid in the pool, that we’d befriended and his parents were shouting him to swim up towards us and get out. At which point, I shouted “and keep your mouth shut”.

We were discussing about our friends party next weekend when our 3 year old asked ‘is this party only for humans or are kids invited too?’

Playing in the garden with my 4-yo niece, she spots a tiny spider in the grass and gleefully winds up to stamp on it. I stop her doing so and explain that it’s not cool to kill spiders. She quietly absorbs this information with a serious, pondering expression on her little face, then asks:

“What can we kill?”

At Bristol Hippodrome.

My partners boy about 4,  was at a performance.

Start of performance a man typing/saying “Once upon a time.. blah blah there was boy”, he couldn’t get the story right… After half a dozen goes.

My partners boy stands up and shouts it’s Alladin!!!

Much to the vocalamusement of the whole Hippodrome.

Miss J used to call the TV remote the “ buddy apper “ because she’d often heard her parents saying “where’s the bloody zapper”

This morning Funkette, aged six, woke us at six by careening in to the room dressed as batgirl and bouncing on the bed. In an attempt to get rid of her I asked her to go brush her teeth. Her response “Batgirl will end you and is too busy lasering to brush her teeth”

Last year at Alton Towers she was stood holding my hand watching the ride Oblivion. As the people plummeted over the side screaming and disappeared in to the tunnel, she turned to me with a puzzled expression and casually asked “Are they dead now Pip?” (my name is Phill and she somehow started calling me Pip and it has stuck).

Driving through Switzerland, we stopped at a services, where the Swiss bizarrely choose to have an adult shop at the entrance – complete with window display .  One of our 5 year old sons points at a mannequin wearing crotchless knickers and a peephole bra and says – “Those pants are worn out – they have a hole in them.”.

It was the same holiday, where the same son slipped off a padded tunnel in the children’s pool and exclaimed extremely loudly “My left nut!”*  We could have ignored it and made a claim that he wasn’t ours.  Unfortunately – his matching twin sat between my legs eating chips.

*He got that from walking through the living room on the way to the bathroom at night – when his mum and I were watching Tropic Thunder.