Jerry Davich's 2-year-old great-nephew, Elliot Baker, plays with a magnifying glass during a recent visit to his Nana's home.
The little girl threw a temper tantrum over a gumball her mother wouldn’t allow her to have.
"No," the mother told her sternly.
"Yes!" the girl screamed.
I watched the encounter with quiet amusement while waiting in the checkout line at a grocery.
"No," the mother insisted.
"Yes!" the girl screamed, flopping to the floor for full effect.
Ah, little kids, huh? You never know what their behavior will be from moment to moment. One minute they’re adorable angels. The next minute they’re little monsters. Sometimes both in the same moment.
The mother silently stared at her daughter with a look that screamed "You're embarrassing me in front of this whole store and if you don't get up right now ..."
The girl didn't budge. The mother got desperate.
"Oneeeeeeeeeee," the mother said firmly, stretching out the word like a piece of taffy.
The girl didn't flinch.
"Two," the mother said.
Nothing changed.
"I'm serious," the mother told her daughter.
"Twwwwooooooooo," she said again, stretching the word again.
"My 4-year-old grandson and my 2-year-old great nephew see the world in a way that only little children can," Jerry Davich writes. "They study everything, as if they use a magnifying glass to better understand it."
Ugh, I thought. How silly. I don’t subscribe to the “1,2,3” parental discipline technique. I never used it. A female customer behind me probably did though.
"Three already," she said just loud enough for everyone in line to hear. The mother smirked. I smiled. The girl got the gumball. I smiled again.
Ah, little kids, huh? You never know what their behavior will be from moment to moment. One minute they’re adorable angels. The next minute they’re little monsters. Sometimes both in the same moment.
As television personality Art Linkletter once famously said: “Kids say the darnedest things.”
That they do. My 4-year-old grandson and my 2-year-old great-nephew see the world in a way that only little children can. They study everything, as if they use a magnifying glass to better understand it.
I envy their wonderment of everything around them. Most of us haven’t had such wonderment or silliness in decades. This is why we tend to remember these moments when we notice them.
“When my granddaughter was 3 years old, she said, 'Grandma you can’t spank me. I’m pregnant!'” Bonnie Bacon said. “I lost it.”
She was of one of many readers who shared with me similar moments with little kids.
“When my granddaughter was 3 she jumped in the shower with her dad and said, 'Daddy, why do you have a worm on your front butt?’” Jeanne Glad said.
You can’t make up this stuff. Only children can. That’s the beauty of it.
“I love working with kids,” said Lorie Dravet Reed, a teacher at Baby Steps Child Care in Lake Station.
Jerry Davich's 4-year-old grandson, Landon, plays with his new Easter Bunny ears at a recent family gathering.
Last Easter, a 4-year-old boy asked her about Jesus’s death and resurrection.
“So, was he human?” the boy asked.
“Yes,” Reed replied.
“So, did Jesus poop?” the boy asked.
Reed tried to not laugh. But she had to reply to the child’s honest question.
“Yes, everybody poops,” she said.
Another one of her prekindergarten kids was using the restroom and told her: “Ms. Lorie, I'm pooping.”
She replied: “OK, make sure you wipe and flush, then wash your hands.”
A minute later, the girl said: “I pooped an X. And X is where the treasure is!”
Years ago, when Jeannie Jones worked with kindergartners, she took a lunch break to go to church to receive her Ash Wednesday ashes marked on her forehead. When she returned to school a girl asked her: "You know you got dirt on your head?”
Jones grinned. "I just got them in church."
The girl didn’t miss a beat: “Well somebody’s gotta clean your church.”
Deborah Lunsford’s grandson was learning his letters when he proudly told her how to spell chocolate. “Hershey’s.”
Sharon Penix’s young niece noticed a “Warehouse" sign in a parking lot.
“Is that where the werewolf lives?” the girl asked innocently.
Marcia Illig’s adult daughter told her stubborn and feisty young daughter: “Don’t tell me what to do!”
The girl put her hands on her hips and replied defiantly: “Don’t tell me do either!”
Valerie Dixon’s grandson is at the phase of repeating what others say, over and over. This habit apparently includes pets.
“We were on the way to the vet and our cat in the carrier was meowing her protest, so my grandson meowed, too. Much more loudly and the entire 20-minute drive,” she said. “And he was upset because he wasn’t in a carrier.”
Sometimes words aren’t needed for kids to communicate their feelings.
Carla Spencer’s grandsons Logan, 3, and Jamie, 4, are nonverbal with special needs. They communicate with her in another way.
Carla Spencer’s two grandsons, ages 3 and 4, are nonverbal with special needs. They live in Georgia, and she visits as often as she can.
“I often wonder how much they understand about who I am, and my role in their lives, or why I visit as often as I do,” Spencer said.
When she arrived recently, Logan, the younger boy, came out of the house to greet her. She opened her car door and Logan took her by the hand, led her to the rear door of her Jeep and helped her remove her suitcase. Then he helped her wheel it into his family’s house and straight down the hall to “Gramma’s Room.”
He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to.
“My question was answered and my heart melted, all at the same moment,” Spencer said.
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