Kids Talk

​This week my husband went across the giant pond for a business trip. Or, as I like to call it…his vacation. I was left with 3 kids. It truly wasn’t as bad as many would like to believe. If anything, the kids were really good. They listened better and were so much more helpful. We had some of the funniest conversations. For the sake of fatigue, I'm going to shorthand them.

T1- 8 y.o. daughter

T2- 6 y.o. son

T3- 4 y.o. son

Conversation #1:

I asked my daughter to help me floss her younger brothers. Initially, I had asked her to floss just one of them. But I ended up doing some other things and so I asked her to floss for the both of them.

Me: T1, can you please floss your brothers for me?

T1: Both of them?

Me: Yes.

T1: Why?

Me: Because you have 2 brothers.

T1: Mommy, I didn’t want 2 brothers; I wanted a sister, remember?

Me (puzzled): What?

T1: I wanted a younger sister. I didn’t want 2 brothers.

T2 (sadly): What…you didn’t want me? (Eyes filling up with tears)

Me: T1, see what you’re doing to your brother? You’re making him sad.

T1 (puts her arm around T2 and leaned in to whisper to him): T2, I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about him (pointing to T3 who was putting toothpaste on his own toothbrush).

T3 (matter of factly): What? You want me to be a sister? I can’t. I’m a boy.



Conversation#2:

On the drive home, my kids were so loud in the car.

Me: Okay, if you guys are good, then you can watch a video this weekend. But you have to be good all week.

T2: Mommy, a video is 3 minutes long. There are 60 minutes in one hour, 24 hours in a day. There are 7 days in a week. You want us to be good for a week for a 3 minutes video? That’s not fair. I want a movie.



Conversation#3:

Another day on the drive home…

T3: Felix (older classmate) took my Pokeman card. He stole it. He said it was free.

T1: Who is Felix? Why didn’t you tell T2? He would get it back for you. He would protect you from anyone who is mean to you. Right, T2?

T2 (hand flying in the air and teeth clenching): Right. I will get your Pokeman card back. If he doesn’t give it back to you, I will tell the teacher on him.

T3: What’s “It’s free”?

Me: It means it doesn’t belong to anyone.

T3: But it belongs to me.

T2: Don’t worry; I will get it back for you. I will get it back from Felix tomorrow.

T1(reassuring her baby brother): If Felix doesn’t give it back to you then I will tell him not to bully little kids, God doesn’t like it. (I will) Make him respect other people’s property.

Then T2 went back to reading his Pokeman book for his siblings out loud in the back of the car. Problem solved. That’s that. That’s what older siblings are for, people!

Silly kids! Little gangsters in the making…

Finally…

On the way to school this morning, they were laughing and talking over each other.  Then we saw a sheriff car.

T3: Shhh….he could hear us. Shhh…

They all immediately shut down. My kids think the sheriff could hear us from their car.