Years ago Art Linkletter wrote a book, “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” A RECOMMENDATION: Take time to jot down the cute things your children and grandchildren say and do. There will come a time when you’ll be glad you did, maybe even as a sequel to Linkletter’s book.
That they do, and I wish I had written down what I’ve heard from my grandchildren in recent years.
I remember a few.
One day granddaughter Alayna and I were washing dishes in our kitchen. Being a tyke, she was standing on a chair, which let her see out a window onto our backyard and garage.
“Last winter a possum stayed in the garage and I’d see it go in and out,” I told her.
The marsupial had fattened up in preparation for cold winter — possums go into brief hibernation when cold becomes extreme — and it was more a waddle than walk when it made an appearance.
She glanced at me for a few seconds with a curious look, and finally said: “I don’t even know what a possum is.”
We sometimes forget that the range of recognition for young kids is limited because they just haven’t had enough time on this celestial orb to have experienced too much. I’m sure today, at age 12 and a tween as she her twin, Emma, like to call themselves, Alayna knows what a possum is. Though I doubt she’d find having one living nearby as intriguing as I did.
When he was about two, grandson Hudson, now a sophomore at Goddard High in Roswell, N.M., was safely belted in the back seat of our car as we drove somewhere in Kansas City. He and his family lived in Olathe then.
We always thought he was a little precocious. Wife Beverly said as much.
“You’re a pretty smart little boy,” she told Hudson.
After a few seconds of thought, he said, “I have a lot of thinking in my head.”
More recent thinking for Hudson, the oldest of our six grandchildren, has centered on education beyond high school.
He always has been a voracious reader and for some time has been fascinated by history, particularly of ancient times in countries in the Mediterranean area.
His preference, at this point, would be to teach history at the university level. Having “a lot of thinking in my head” would bode well for him if that is where he lands.
— Bob Johnson
Kids’ utterings are often fascinating
