Conversations With a Four-Year-Old

I told my four year old son he was just like me. I said, “Frank, you have my genes.” He laughed and looked at his legs and said “These are not your jeans!”

4 year old Natalie: Mommy, you know, I’m growing every day. Even if I can’t feel it or see it.
me: thats true! where did you learn that?
Nat: nowhere! I just know!

4 year old Sisi: Mommy, one day ‘today’ will be a long time ago.

What beautiful sweaters! I love the bright yellow women’s cardigan!

Haha!! I love these small stories. There are many stories about my almost five-years-old daughter, too. But the most recent is when she told me to help her food “this sausage skin will pollute my lip’s environment”.

Ah…..I love these! My mom was visiting for a few days in Feb. and one morning my five year old came into the kitchen where I was brewing coffee and said, earnestly “Did you know adults will die if they don’t drink coffee every day?”. I guess he’s been paying attention! My mom and I burst out laughing.

Anton sounds like such a sweet kid! My 2-1/2 year old has been chatting up a storm. A recent favorite conversation happened when she woke up from her nap a couple of weeks ago. She asked me, “mama will you sing me a sad song?” I said okay and sang her a few lines from somewhere over the rainbow. As I sang she climbed in my lap, closed her eyes, and made this scrunched up sad face like she was really feelin it. Then after I finished singing she stood up and touched my face and looked me right in the eyes and said “thank you mama. Thank you for singing me that sad song. I feel happy now.” And then she strolled through her bedroom door to go find a toy. My heart exploded.

so many beautiful things.. i love the cardigans for kids, perfection

Oh my gosh, what a sweet brother. As someone with severe depression, my brother is the one person who can make me laugh when I’m at my worst. Siblings are the actual best. That said, I read the doll story wrong at first and thought he had removed the doll head and was very “oh that IS dark…” haha. He sounds like such a sweet little goofball.

I coach gymnastics near Beverly Hills so the clientele is very…well, let’s just say that their last names sound familiar to me for a reason. It’s funny because they don’t understand their experiences aren’t normal so they’re not jerks about it, they just live in a different world. Some gems I’ve heard:

(when asked to write what they’re thankful for on a paper leaf to put in the lobby) “I’m thankful for ALL of my nannies!”

(two Sundays ago, coaching a birthday party): “my mom wanted to come too but she’s busy today getting ready for Oscar.”

“I’ll be gone for class all summer because I’m going to my grandma’s Italy house! Where is your grandma’s summer house?”

“I’m going a lot of places this summer and I forget what they are but I know one of them is called Paris.”

“Oh! [building name]? That’s my grandpa’s building!”

And just normal kid stuff, like when a girl said she’s almost 5, and I said “You’re four? I’m also four!” and she said “your’e not four! You’re OLD. You’re FOURTEEN.” (also I am 32).

And the 6 year old who, when I asked her what her favorite book is said “The Magic Treehouse” [waits a beat] “But I DABBLE in War and Peace”. (totally joking around, but I hadn’t even heard of War and Peace at 6, ha.

I was watching “Arthur” on PBS with a small group of my 5 year-old daughter’s friends. One of them asked what Buster’s last name is. I replied, “It’s ‘Baxter.” One of the little girls looked shocked and said, “That’s a naughty word! We don’t say that!” Confused, I said, “Baxter is a naughty word?” She said, “Yes! It’s a naughty word for when a baby is born and the mommy and daddy aren’t married!” I almost fell off of the sofa. I could just imagine that conversation, where she’d overheard someone say “b**tard” and her mom or dad had tried to explain what it meant and that it was a word we do not say!

I was making a grocery list the other day and my daughter, who turned two last month (and who was running around in circles shouting, “Me running! Yay!”), stopped, ran over, put her finger on the list and said, “pretzel m&m’s!” They’re her favorite. And yes, I bought her some.

Your Anton is a gem.

Love ALL THIS. We are parents of four adult children, and now grandparents to one gorgeous boy. He delights us constantly with his wise and hilarious comments. In one recent conversation I think we were talking about ‘smartness’, and he piped up with “Well, you’re not very smart, Poppy, because you can’t even follow Nanna’s rules”. Never was a truer word spoken!! The child’s a genius!!

My 4-y-o watched Olympic speed skating with my parents, who explained to him that the skaters’ tight outfits help them to go faster. He came home and requested “really, really tight clothes” for his fifth birthday.

He wants to be a construction worker when grows up but recently told my husband that he expects me to go to work with him every day so that I can take over whenever he needs a break.

Tonight, my 5 year old was looking for a very specific orange car. We were all trying to remember the last time we had seen it, when the 3 year old said:
Oh, I know where it is!!
Where?
It’s lost!

We also recently went through a McDonald’s drive thru for the first time on a long car trip. There was immense excitement — the boys couldn’t believe they were going to get to eat french fries AND ketchup in the car. When the 5 year old heard the voice on the intercom, he screamed, “Who is that?! Is that Alexa??!!” (He has been begging for an Alexa, so he can listen to Can’t Stop the Feeling as many times in a row as he wants.)

As they get older and closer, there is nothing more heart melting to me than the bond between these boys. They push each other (literally and figuratively) right to the brink, but somehow intuit when it’s time to ask “R U OK?” in a silly robot voice. I think from here on in, I’ll see those moments and think, “There it is.”

I teach second grade, so basically get to spend my days in a gold mine of glorious, brilliant, profound, and hilarious comments from my students. Here are some that made me laugh recently:

Student 1: “I want to have 8 kids when I grow up: two sets of twins and one set of triplets.”
Student 2, horrified: “Your poor wife!”

Me, to a student: “You were running really fast on the playground!”
Student: “I know! I’ve been working on my fasting skills.”

Me, pointing to a parallelogram on a math chart: “What is this shape called?”
Student: “A para…lollipop?”

My students are working on a project right now to start their own businesses, and I was checking in with each group on their progress.
Me: “Have you thought of what you might like to sell in your store?”
Student, with a deep sigh: “No, not really. It’s just so hard to compete with technology these days.”

Thank you for the laugh!