☺"Be careful, and remember, your sister is not a toy."☺

Sometimes kids forget that not everything is their own personal toy. I've had to give similar reminders to my kids about our dog.

Here's the story behind this thoughtful quote:
"We had an incident at the bowling alley this weekend...My son (5) decided he would try spinning my daughter (2) on her stool. Well, physics showed up, and yada, yada....my daughter ended up on the floor chin first. She had a couple of cuts on her chin and a sore jaw. - Cut to the bus stop this morning....had to remind my son to "be careful, and remember, your sister is not a toy!"

But really, how tempting is a stool to a five year old...

☺"I'm glad I'm not an elephant."☺

Said my 5 year old daughter, very thoughtfully, yesterday morning as we were watching Babar. "Why?" I asked. "Because I don't want to get in dirty rivers and stuff and elephants don't get to watch TV." Makes sense to me.

"Don't lick, stop licking, lick, yuck, ew..."

All children lick things, we know this, but that fact doesn't make it any less horrifying as a parent when you are watching, as if in slow motion, your child's tongue pop out and glide over some unquestionably disgusting item and you feel powerless to stop it. Here are some things that I have said, as well as some quotes from various parents dealing with this same issue:

Don't lick your pizza (as explained in my first post)
Stop trying to lick him!
I can't believe you just licked that
Do NOT lick that
Don't lick it again
Don't lick your face in order to clean it! (mommy steph)
Stop licking the public transportation! (mommy beck in chicago 'still waiting for a third arm to sprout')
Don't lick the dog, cat

Did I miss any? Let me know!

"Please stop biting your plate."

I mean, I know my cooking is good, but really...

Speaking of biting things:

"I have to tell my daughter constantly to quit biting the cat!" wrote in one dad.

I believe my next post will address licking things. Lots of stuff there. If you're germophobic (which, according to some quiz i just took, i am. silly quiz) then you may want to skip the next one. Or don't think too much about what exactly goes into your child's mouth everyday, on a constant basis, no matter how hard you try to keep their environment clean. Just ignore all the things that could possibly be on that item that just got shoved into their eager mouths or that is now right on the tip of their tongues and about to be all over their cute little dirty faces. And don't even waste one second visualizing all the things that could be on their hands at any given moment. Oh, and if they suck their fingers...oh my...

☺"Dude, you're tripping on your dress buddy."☺

Said to my 2 year old son by a dad friend of ours. The kids were playing dress-up and my son was, naturally, wearing a princess dress, donning a play gun. As he was running around their living room our friend looked over as my son fell to the ground, shot straight back up, and fell again. With much care and concern, he said these words as he helped him make a temporary hem and got him on his merry way. All very sweet.

"You do not throw toothbrushes in the toilet."

Thankfully, the ones that went swimming needed to be replaced anyway, but still, kids need to know these basic rules. I understand how tempting it is to throw things into still water...happens all the time...but please, not toothbrushes, that's just gross.

Speaking of toothbrushes and something gross, a mom had this to share:

"I once said 'Don't brush the cat with my toothbrush!' I could NOT believe the words came out of my mouth!"

Moral of the story? One must explicitly state what exactly toothbrushes are for. Period.

"No, no, no, you really need to wear underwear."

I have actually said this to all of my children at some point, more than once. I'm sure every parent has...right?!?

☺"I need to use the 'sitter'"☺

Submitted by a dismayed daddy:

"I took my 2 y/o daughter to the playground and she needed to use the bathroom so I took her into the men's room. She wanted to know what the urinals were for so I told her boys go standing and girls sit down. We went back to the playground and she announced "I need to use the sitter" but her diction wasn't very good. Got lots of nasty looks until I explained."

"Why are there red speckles on your forehead?...

...There are red speckles on your forehead because you've been crying about beans!"

My dear hubby said that just last night. He was trying to reason with our 7 year old about the black beans I put in the enchiladas. Apparently my son has a great aversion to beans because he saw them in there and got really, really upset. My sweet, reasonable, level-headed husband took him in the other room and began calmly explaining that beans were nothing to cry about, that he himself did not like pinto beans but he didn't cry when he saw them, that crying over beans was, in fact, an unnecessary thing to do and actually quite silly. He then pointed out the 'red speckles' on our son's forehead and took him into the bathroom to see for himself. I heard my son laughing even before my husband got to finish his profound statement and as they both came back into the kitchen I asked if it would be okay if I quoted him. He just smiled and said, "Can I quote you? I heard you just tell our youngest to stop licking the tortilla bag."

"Stop! Get the banana out of your pants, please."

Oh my, I sure didn't want to say this one but I had to. I just had to. My daughter had gotten a play shopping cart full of food and some random items were on the floor. My youngest son picked up a few things and was playing ever-so-innocently with them when, all of a sudden, I see him shove the play banana down his pants and start laughing. Before I could stop myself, those words flew out of my mouth and by the time I got to the 'please' I was almost whispering. I didn't really want my other kids to hear me say that and repeat it. I mean, how would I explain that to my son's teacher??

☺"Yeah, just like the old days!"☺

My 5 year old daughter just said this to me! Okay, so I'm veering slightly from the motif of this blog by quoting a child, but I just had to write this one down. My kids are outside playing - the sun is out for a brief moment this winter here in Oregon so we have to take advantage of it - and my 2 older ones wanted to both ride the same scooter. My daughter came in to put on a jacket and said it was good that she was taking a long time so her older brother could ride longer. Then I asked her to send her brother in when she goes back out so then she'll be able to ride a while too. She smiled and said these very grown-up words to me as she headed out the door. Huh?!

"What's blue in your nose?"

To this day, I still don't know. It could have been chalk, marker (yuck), crayon (ouch)...who knows? I was changing my son's diaper one afternoon a couple of years ago and happened to notice a little blue spot just below his nose. I went to rub it off and that's when I noticed that inside his nose was blue too. Taken aback I asked him this question, really hoping to get an answer because I was quite curious, but all I got were giggles. I guess it will forever be a mystery...

"Don't sit on your sister"

I'm sure this is one of the more common phrases parents have said over the years, with some slight variations:

Don't sit on your brother, the cat, the dog, the baby...

Please stop standing on your sister's, brother's, cat's, dog's, head...

And one of my favorites in this genre, submitted by my good friend and great mom (thanks steph!):
Please don't drag your sister around by her head.

"Well, that's what happens when you put nailpolish on your face."

My youngest son was watching his older sister put on some nailpolish and must have thought, "Hey, if it looks good on the nails, it'll look even better on the face!" So he added a few light purple decorations to his adorable face and came to show me. We had a brief 'conversation' about where nailpolish goes and then he decided he wanted it off. Well, it had already dried and he was getting frustrated because it wouldn't just wipe off so he started crying. I then tried to help him get it off by picking at it. Now, that may sound a bit harsh but it was either that or nailpolish remover and I figured he already had enough chemicals on his face for one day. So, not surprisingly, he got upset at what I was doing and pushed my hand away so I, in turn, said the above words in the hopes that his 2-year-old mind would understand the consequences of his actions. Told him, huh?

"Take the screwdriver out of your ear"

My 2½ year old got a tool belt for Christmas...'nuff said!

"I don't know, I wasn't wearing your pants"

It was time to go to the gym that evening and my oldest son, for some reason that I now can't remember, had taken his pants off. It made sense at the time. Anyway, we were all about to walk out the door and he had been asking and asking if anyone had seen his pants. He finally got to me and those words just flew out of my mouth. I heard my husband give a little chuckle/gasp, but we just kept moving. I mean, honestly, if you take your pants off shouldn't you know where you put them?

"Don't lick your pizza" (how this all started...)

So my husband and I had gotten pizza for dinner one night a few years back and our son (2 at the time) was enjoying his slice, but was also playing around a bit. We would take turns 'reminding' him how to eat, wipe his mouth, etc... you know, the basics, when I looked over at one point and blurted out, rather frustrated, "Don't lick your pizza!" Now, what was peculiar wasn't so much what I had just said, but how my husband didn't bat an eye. We just kept right on eating as if what just came out of my mouth was a phrase that one would say to, perhaps, a co-worker or a friend in everyday conversation. A few months later I was relating this story to my brother who then suggested I keep a running log of other 'strange-yet-utterly-relevant-at-the-time' things I say to my children that, taken out of context, would sound perfectly ludicrous. So here I am, list in hand (augmented by other equally sensible moms), ready to share all the absurd yet befitting things we say!