Kids Say (And Do) The Darndest Things

Little kids are hard to write. Does anyone have some real-life stories that could be used as reference material for writing small children?

 

How little?

 

The child I'm writing is a four-year-old girl. Any stories are good, though--I'm sure that a lot of people can use good things to bounce off of.

 

Well, I work in a church nursery, infant to five years...

One of my favorite stories happened on Maundy Thursday. One of the three year olds is currently working on potty training, so I make a point to ask her if she has to go when she comes in. She was fine, but about twenty minutes later, she announces she has to go to the bathroom and doesn't need any help. Three minutes later she wanders out of the bathroom with her tights at her knees, those, her underwear, and her dress shoes soaked. I go into the bathroom and she's created a puddle about the size of a bed pillow. I was rather impressed; I didn't know little kids had bladders that big. Anyway, I had to strip her out of her tights and underwear and let her wander around with nothing under her dress. She, of course, was quite comfortable.

 

It depends on the kid. For example, my three-year-old nephew tended to get very brooding. He still does. But instead of being this crazy kid, he would glower at me and order me around as if we were equals. He now is 5 and has this complex about being the heroic martyr, brooding in the mirror and talking about his destiny.

 

My three year old brother insists on calling everyone "Homie G"...and I HAVE NO IDEA WHY! He also has been exposed to Star Wars since he was born, so he runs around singing about X-Wings and making lightsaber noises.

He also kicks, hits, and nibbles on people. And I mean nibble. He makes a chomping noise, nibbles, then pretends to burp and says "Scuuuuse me!"

Now, my six year old brother has some emotion issues I think. He hates people.

 

Well, let's see.

At the age of three my daughter insisted on wearing a Burger King crown everywhere for about a month.

At the age of four she drew stripes all over her brother with a Sharpie and declared that he was a zebra. He was given no choice in the matter. Same with the hair cut she gave him right after drawing a big "W" on his forehead. No, not the letter W as she told us. "It's a butt!"

My five year old nephew peed on the carpet the other day to get back at his mother for making him clean up his playdough.

My then two year old son flushed the remote - TWICE.

My oldest son used to rinse off his pacifier in the dog's water bowl as soon as he could crawl.

(I've got four kids and a dozen nephews, so the list is pretty much endless)

Bathroom humor is big between ages 4 and well, a long time.

 

Bathroom humor is still big with my 21-year-old boyfriend and 53-year-old father...

 

My little sisters (6 and 7) love to play imaginative games. They'll make long, complicated stories with their ponies that mostly involve princes and princesses and being rescued from the evil pony in the bad castle (a cardboard box.) They'll hang on my legs if I try to get away from them, snuggle with me on the couch when watching TV or movies to be my "blanket," and just generally think I'm cool, which is flattering.

Man, I can't even remember all the cute things they've done.

 

Taught my neice when she was four how to curtsy and dance a few steps, and that was when we began acting like princesses.

She told me she hated me once, so I told her I loved her with all my heart, and she said she hates me as much as she can.

My sisters and I always fight over who's hair is better, (red or brown) and she said, "It doesn't matter what color of hair you have, only that you have hair."

Oh and she and her sister had a game where they spied little pirates everywhere.

She wanted to marry a kitty cat.

 

When I was 4 or 5, I decided to play Peter Pan. For some reason I thought I was John, and I had on a cowboy hat and had an umbrella in my other hand. I was jumping up and down on my parents bed, umbrella pointed straight up, hit the light fixture with the umbrella, got a minor shock, shattered the glass, and got lots of little cuts all over my face. I learned my lesson.

 

My grandmother used to have these stairs, with a wall on one side, but no railing or anything else on the other until you got half way up the stairs. Therefore there was a six foot drop to the living room floor on this one side. Well, I used to love to swim. So I would constantly pretend that my grandmother's stairs were the diving board and the floor was the Pool/water. I was about four when I got the bright idea to actually jump off the diving board...


I didn't get hurt or anything, but I was really careful after that.

My siblings and I liked to get our selves locked in rooms and then loose the key (not know how to unlock the doors). I did that a lot at 3/4.

At three, we were having this huge barbecue at my house and I walked into the backyard with all the guests, squatted, pulled my pants down and said 'Look at me- I'm a doggy' as I peed on the groud.

As a small child (and even now, sort of) I would do the exact opposite of what I was told to do.

At two, to punish my mother, I went to the bathroom (number two...) and then smeared it all over the bathroom walls...

At five, my brother enjoyed peeing in the living room, for no particular reason.

And there are many more stories. I'm the oldest of four and my youngest brother is five (that peeing incident was three weeks ago...) so I'm sure I can come up with more...

 

I've been working in daycare for quite some time and baby sitting kids since my early teenage years.

When my little sister was three she told her nursery school teacher on the first day of school that she was Dorothy Gail when she asked her her name. The teacher actually believed her for a minute until she elaborated with "Dorothy Gail, from Kanasas."

The one year olds that I work with at work will be happily sharing a toy one minute and then two seconds later fighting over it and biting each other. Biting is pretty common from one year to about two and a half or even older.

Kids I teach in Bible class are older elementary range and the other day we were talking about a wall of good character in your heart. The other teacher was discussing what to do if you get a bad brick in your heart wall and what to do about it -- the 9-year-old girl suggested open heart surgery.

 

My five year old sister once declared she was an ostritch. She took some of my ten year old sisters pink hair dye and tried to dye hearts on my triplet's and I's hair, so we would be ostritch-lovers.

 

My six year old wanted to be Roxie Hart in Chicago on Broadway, but now she wants to be a dinosaur scientist and a pilot. That was after she wanted to be a forensic scientist. Her favorite subject is math and she loves visiting museums. I blame her archaeologist father for this. Same goes for after watching The Mummy Returns she wanted to know if the Scorpion King was real and when did he actually rule. (And yes my husband found the information for her )

My ninteen month old son just got finished eating a crayon... He climbs on everything, including when you open the fridge he right there trying to climb inside. But he watches everything you do and when you don't expect it will try and do it too.

They're both too smart for their own good.

 

That was after she wanted to be a forensic scientist.

Heh. I want to be a forensic pathologist...and I'm eighteen.

From the time I was three till the time I was fifteen, I wanted to be a vet. It wasn't until my mother suggested forensic pathology as the perfect job for me and I agreed that I changed my mind.

At four, I was a big lover of dog and cat food. Luckily only the dry stuff, but...

We used to have this cat who was always bringing home dead things. And even at 3/4, I wanted to dissect them. I even attempted to, a few times.

I had a gold fish when I was three. It lived for about four months /(hey, these were the feeder kind) and then it died. My mother was so worried about my reaction and so she asked me if I wanted to bury it. I turned to her and said 'It's just a dead fish. Flush it down the toilet'.

I saw Dumbo when I was little. That scene were Dumbo's mother gets tied up in the circurs really hit me. So I decided to try it out on everyone else. I would tie people's legs to chairs, table legs, and ther objects and I would try to tie up the dog all the time...

 

When my youngest brother was four, he figured out (mostly from watching two of my other brothers) how to burp on purpose. We all laughed so hard that he started doing it all the time. It took my mom several years after that get him to close his mouth when he did it (man those babies were loud!)

Once, when we were in an underground parking lot, we were playing with the echo and the same brother yelled, "quatro!" He was so excited he ran to my mom saying, "Mommy, Mommy, SPANISH works in here!"

When I was 3-4 I used to pull the drawers in the kitchen out to use them like stairs and climb on the counter.

I also would climb up on top of the table so I could get at the honey pot and drizzle honey all over my hair.

I have always had definite opinions about clothes. I love interesting and unusual ones (which I wear/collect). However, when I was little (4-5) I had the hardest time deciding what to wear in the morning. I wouldn't be able to choose and get frustrated and start crying. Eventually, my mom started sneaking into my room and taking everything out of my closet except for two or three outfits. Then she would wake me up so we could play "Princess" and she would be my maid and help me decide what to wear that day. (e.g. "Oh look princess, this blue dress is very nice!" etc.)

I actually used that last one in a story here before, but you're still welcome to it (and my story wasn't very good anyway).

People were looking at me when I started laughing out loud in the computer lab at y'alls stories! Thanks!

 

That was after she wanted to be a forensic scientist.

Heh. I want to be a forensic pathologist...and I'm eighteen.

From the time I was three till the time I was fifteen, I wanted to be a vet. It wasn't until my mother suggested forensic pathology as the perfect job for me and I agreed that I changed my mind.

At four, I was a big lover of dog and cat food. Luckily only the dry stuff, but...

We used to have this cat who was always bringing home dead things. And even at 3/4, I wanted to dissect them. I even attempted to, a few times.

I had a gold fish when I was three. It lived for about four months /(hey, these were the feeder kind) and then it died. My mother was so worried about my reaction and so she asked me if I wanted to bury it. I turned to her and said 'It's just a dead fish. Flush it down the toilet'.

I saw Dumbo when I was little. That scene were Dumbo's mother gets tied up in the circurs really hit me. So I decided to try it out on everyone else. I would tie people's legs to chairs, table legs, and ther objects and I would try to tie up the dog all the time...

My mother was a private flute teacher, so she had filing cabinets around filled with music. I used to hide things like the house and car keys in the back of them...where the locator on the keys couldn't be heard...

We also used to have this heater on the floor and I would also be constantly sticking things like cleaning rods and keys, including stuff belonging to her students there.

And we had these two dogs, and I used to take the food away from them when they were eating and switch it around. I never got bitten or anything (thank goodness- they realy were nice dogs), but my mother yelled at me several times for doing it.

 

Once when I was two my dad and mom were making caramel popcorn. I told my dad I wanted some and he said "tough."

I stood there and thought about it for a few minutes and then said "I want some tough."

 

Another thing I used to do was take my two cats and dress them up in doll clothes. I wouldn't put them in carriages or anything, but I did at least dress them up.

There was also the time I stuck my baby half-sister in the toybox I had made into a bed for her. I was three...

And my brothers used to ride around on our dog, who was about as big as a pony, but resembled a sheep when they were little.

At four was also when I was visiting my aunt in Minnesota and I found a snake and called her over to look at it, knowing that she was terrified of them...

 

My friend's daughter, then 2, was riding her tricycle on their large back deck while her grandfather was barbequeing. Suddenly he heard a clunk clunk clunk, turned around, and saw that she had gone down the steps on her tricycle (three shallow steps - stayed on the trike)

He says "Honey, you're not supposed to ride down the stairs!"

She looked back up at him with this bewildered, wide-eyed expression, held her arms out, shrugged her shoulders, and said, "But nobody told me!"

~Abby~

 

My mother teaches Sunday School, and once, a little boy (maybe 6 years old) got in trouble, and while his mom was reprimanding him, he said, "Mrs T. [my mom] says you have to forgive me!"

My littlist brother had this thing with not wearing pants when he was about 5.

My cousin once gave his sister the last bagel at breakfast, and my aunt said that it was very nice of him. He said that he was listening to the angel (like the cartoons with the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other). His other sister, who was... 4-6?, said, "I listen to my butt."

 

I used to lay on the heater with a blanket.

And my brother and I used to sword-fight with curtain rods. "Look, Mom, I'm Luke Skywalker". That was a week after my cousin Mike showed us The Empire Strikes Back.

My brother also told me there were wild pigs under the bed ... and I believed him.

And we ate straight sugar packets. And got hyper.

We would also burp our names.

And then there's the infamous plastic bag instant. I was six, my brother was four, we went around the neighborhood dressed only in a plastic grocery bag with holes poked in it for our legs, and our arms through the handles. No clue where we got that idea. My childhood sounds like the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes"

 

I was two when my little brother was born - old enough to know my mom was having another baby but not old enough to know what that meant. So, quite naturally, I thought she was replacing me and didn't want me anymore. Apparently I didn't talk to her for four days.

 

Here's my take on boys vs girls and which are harder to raise. If you ask boys what they're doing they'll yell down "We shaved the cat! It was cool!"

If you ask girls, they'll say "Nothing," in a completely innocent tone. You have to actually go into their room to discover they've given the cat a haircut.

Oh, my kids have been known to ride a mattress down the stairs. We have a basset hound that has a "need for speed" and he likes to jump on for a ride, too.