MY SON thought cars were free because they don’t fit in a shopping trolley.
And he called skunks ‘stunks’, because they stink.
We argued over that one, but he had a point.
Kids say the funniest things and don’t understand boundaries.
We were in a queue at an international airport, waiting to check in baggage for a visit to South Africa.
My suitcases were full of gifts for family and a little over the weight limit, okay … a lot over the weight limit.
Manipulation through friendly conversation was the plan but as our turn to check in came my then three-year-old blurts out: “you know what?
“What?” the check in agent said.
“Boys don’t like fat chicks,”
The lady in question was of a larger size but that’s not why he said it.
He was going through a Simpsons stage and repeating things he’d heard the cartoon characters say.
It was just my luck he pulled that line out when it was least appropriate.
I feigned nonchalance and quipped, “silly the things kids pick up from cartoons, hey” and breathed a sigh of relief as my luggage disappeared into airport nirvana.
It’s the innocent mind that is precious and beautiful.
This kid, he had me chuckling often.
He was tall for his age, had a mop of curly blonde hair and blue eyes.
He had a gruff, hoarse voice and preferred buttoned, collared shirts to T-shirts.
Life was taken seriously and he always asked the hard questions.
I picked him up from kindy one afternoon and he told me we needed to talk, privately.
“I’m going to have to marry Grace,” he said with a sigh.
“We are having a baby.”
He was four and Grace was his ‘girlfriend’, he’d been giving her pretty rocks and bird feathers for ages.
It was the time when ‘Happy Feet’ the animated movie, was in the cinema.
My son told me Grace had an egg in her belly and he’d need to look after it when it came out.
He was prepared to walk around holding it between his knees because he had different feet to that of a penguin and no fur.
He was earnest, he believed it and was trying to figure out how to be four and look after an egg.
The next day I bought a book suitable for children that explained the facts of life.
It was a hardcover book, unsexualised and explanations in words kids could understand without telling them too much too soon.
We sat on the couch and turned the pages. He had innocent questions like “why do girls wear shirts because boys like boobs so they don’t really need to” and the inevitable ‘yuck’ in the how babies are made section.
The ‘boys like boobs’ part was the cutest thing ever.
I remember it vividly because he said it so innocently and was genuinely confused as to the why?
I remember how I learned about the birds and the bees.
We spent a lot of time with a family who had children the same age as my brother Mike and I.
We found a ‘birds and the bees’ book at their home that explained things using cartoon images of dogs and chickens, then a man and woman in bed with the blankets up to their necks.
The next page was a baby they’d welcomed.
It taught us nothing and my very religious parents weren’t keen to teach us much more.
We probably learned the same way many kids in the 70s and 80s did.
Trial and error as teenagers and ‘watching’ movies at the local drive in.
If you were a teenager in the 70s and 80s, you know full well what I mean so I’ll say no more.
I’m just grateful there was no social media back then or mobile phones.
What happened, happened, and the only proof (maybe) was a photograph and the negatives, it couldn’t follow you like it does today.
Kids say the funniest things and the one that stands out most is when we were at the pizza shop and were told it cost more to add chicken than it does to add beef.
“Why extra when I’m not having any beef at all?” I asked the cashier.
A little tug on my jumper and I look down, “mum, don’t you know, chickens are much harder to catch than cows so of course it’s going to cost more”.
The cashier laughed and the swap was free.
Kid’s say the funniest things and sometimes when they do, it makes everyone’s day.
