As I was nursing my baby, my cousin's six-year-old daughter, Krissy, came into the room. Never having seen anyone breast feed before, she was intrigued and full of all kinds of questions about what I was doing. After mulling over my answers, she remarked, 'My mom has some of those, but I don't think she knows how to use them..'
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Working as a pediatric nurse, I had the difficult assignment of giving immunization shots to children. One day, I entered the examining room to give four-year-old Lizzie her needle. 'No, no, no!' she screamed. 'Lizzie,' scolded her mother, 'that's not polite behavior.' With that, the girl yelled even louder, 'No, thank you! No, thank you!
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On the way back from a Cub Scout meeting, my grandson innocently said to my son, 'Dad, I know babies come from mommies' tummies, but how do they get there in the first place?' After my son hemmed and hawed awhile, my grandson finally spoke up in disgust, 'You don't have to make up something, Dad. It's okay if you don't know the answer.'
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Just before I was deployed to Iraq , I sat my eight-year-old son down and broke the news to him. 'I'm going to be away for a long time,' I told him... 'I'm going to Iraq ...' 'Why?' he asked. 'Don't you know there's a war going on over there?'
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The following ones were sent to me by my friend Hilary, dedicated to all grandparents out there. They're wonderful too, especially when described by a bunch of eight-year-old children:
Grandparents are a lady and a man who have no little children of their own.
When they take us for walks, they slow down past things like pretty leaves and caterpillars. They show us and talk to us about the colours of the flowers and also why we shouldn't step on 'cracks.'
They don't say, 'Hurry up.'
They have to answer questions like 'Why isn't God married?' and 'How come dogs chase cats?'
When they read to us, they don't skip pages. They don't mind if we ask for the same story over again.
