Kids say the funniest things

My daughter is a very smart, observant little girl and I think sometimes we underestimate how much she is listening and what she is paying attention to. The phrase, "Little pitchers have big ears" certainly applies to her, as these examples show:

Privacy in the Bathroom

Most moms and dads know that once your child can walk, there is very little in your home that remains private. My daughter developed the habit of walking in on my husband & I when either of us were taking a "potty break."

It was that certain time of the month and she walked into the bathroom and asked, "Mommy, is your diaper all right?" "Diaper?", I responded, and then I realised what she meant (LOL). "It's fine," I said and hurried her away.

A few days later, we were attending story time at Barnes & Noble and Isabella was looking around in my daiper bag for a pen. I was chatting to some moms and -- lo and behold -- Isabella comes walking towards me with a little green square in her hand! "Mommy," she said rather loudly, "Here's your diaper!" Oh boy... :)

Everyone around me laughed and was I embarrassed! I have come to realise that enforcing the need for privacy is a lesson that one needs to enforce early and often.

Correspondence

We love Little Einsteins in our house, and Isabella loved the episode about the caterpillar and getting invitations to the annual butterfly party. Since she watched this episode, she was obsessed with waiting for the mailman.

One day, she saw him approaching our house and she opened the door and said "Hello!" and then asked him for our "correspondence." You could have knocked Tom, our mailman, over with a feather. He said he had never had toddler ask him for correspondence. Yeah Einsteins! Yeah Bella!

Are you going to trim me?

Getting Bella's hair trimmed has now become a Daddy and Bella activity; she behaves beautifully for him. I seem to rub her the wrong way and end up having to deal with beasty baby.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that since her hair was growing it looks like she needed a trim and she looked at me in horror; when I asked her what was wrong, she started crying. After a couple of minutes, I asked again, "What's wrong?" She said, "I am growing; will you trim me too?" I laughingly explained that we only trim hair and nails. Funny how kids' minds work...

Paris, France

Bella has become enamored with the idea of going to Paris and seeing the Eiffel Tower after we watched a Travel channel show about touring Paris.

One Sunday morning, she asked her father if he could take her to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. We explained that this was not the type of trip that one just took, and that you had to plan these things out. Matt took her to the computer and pulled up some pictures of Paris and she liked looking at it.

A week or so later we were on our way to Vermont and she happened to see a cell phone tower -- a particularly big one in upstate NY -- and she screams excitedly, "We are in Paris, there's the Eiffel Tower!"

Profanity

All right, well...we all use bad language every now and then, and it's no suprise when our kids learn it as well.

In our family, we try to use substitute words, but sometimes it does not work out. One afternoon we all going out together to Barnes & Noble, and were trying to find a parking spot, and the only one available is one that the guy next door had parked really badly; needless to say, a lot of manuvering was required. At one point, Matt said "F#$K!" and, without missing a beat, we hear a little voice chime from the back seat "Suck, Suck!" It's a good thing she could not say "f's"! Daddy was fined $5 for his slip.

On another occasion, Bella was a much faster learner. Matt was working out in the front yard, keeping one eye on what he was doing while keeping the other eye on Bella, who was running around. I needed his attention, and so I called his name from the window right behind where he was working. This accidentally startled him, and he jumped & yelled, "S***!" Like an echo, Bella then yells in the exact same tone, "S***!" Matt & I cracked up, but then had to make sure we weren't making a big deal about it so Bella wouldn't realize it was such an evocative word. Daddy was fined another $5. :)