Kids! You Gotta Love 'em

   Well, here it is, day 4 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge, and I actually had an idea about what to write about today. Kids. This thinking, which can be hazardous to my health and the health of others, started when our daughter, Alyssa, said that Micheal used crayon and drew out a hopscotch in the grout of their tiled floor. Micheal is 5, and it probably made perfect sense to him, because he could probably see a hopscotch with the tiles and grout. Needless to say, Alyssa was not happy.
   Anyway, we have 3 kids. Amy is 29, Daniel is 27, and Alyssa is 24. We also have 5 grandkids, with another possible 3 in the near future, through adoption and marriage.
   When Alyssa was about 3 and Daniel was about 5, and Amy was about 7, I let them go out and paint water color pictures on paper, on the front porch. I was sitting on the bench reading. Next thing I see is Alyssa painting tiny ants as they walked by. Even after squirting the concrete porch off right away, the paint stayed. We had nice colorful splotches for decorations.
   Another time, I walk into the kitchen and see Alyssa on her hands and knees, spitting great gobs of spit on the floor. The ants had moved in doors to the kitchen and Alyssa said Daniel told her if she spit on them, it would kill the ants, so that's what she was doing.
   When Daniel was about 5 or 6 years old, he was playing with a friend that lived across the street. Next thing I know, Daniel is home, crying, saying the mother sent him home and about that time I get a phone call from the mother saying Daniel had written the f word in the dust of her car. She hadn't gone out to see it yet, but that's what her son had told her. I was shocked. I didn't know Daniel knew that word, much less how to spell it. I got another phone call about 2 minutes later from the mother, laughing and apologizing and saying Daniel could go back over and play. On the side of her Blazer, written in big letters was the letter F and the word, word. I'm also surprised he could spell word. He wrote the F word alright. He and his friend did a fine job washing the Blazer as high as they could reach.
   When Daniel was about that same age, I'm walking down the hall, past his room and I hear "oh s**t". He'd picked up all this nice language at school and he'd been saying it a lot, so I told him to get in the bathroom. His dad had said if we caught him , he'd have to lick the bar of soap.
   I'm holding the bar of soap in my right hand and tell Daniel to lick it. (It was a dry bar of soap and it just had to be a quick swipe of the tongue.) Daniel looks up and me and says " I don't wanna lick the d***n bar of soap." I sung my left arm, ready to back hand him on his rear and I missed and hit the door frame. I broke my little finger, and as I'm holding it in my right hand I'm telling Daniel to "get out, get out now". He ran to his room. I never went to the Dr. for the broken little finger because I thought they'd get me for hitting my kid, even though I had missed him. Besides that, I'd go there and say what, "You see, Doc, it's like this. I was gonna hit my kid and I missed and hit the door frame instead?" So now my left little finger is a little crookeder than the right little finger. To this day, Daniel doesn't cuss in front of me. Of course, he lives in California and we live in Washington.
   I used to babysit the little girl next door. She was at our house so much, I called her my part time child. One day, I packed her and our kids up and went to the grocery store. When we were in the produce department, a woman drops a head of lettuce, and this little girl, who was 3 years old at the time, says clearly and loudly, "s**t happens". The woman looked shocked and I told her the little girl wasn't mine, I just babysat her. Right after this, the little girl points and says,"look, Mommy", to me. The woman glared at me and hurried away. The little girl thought Mommy was my name, because our kids called me that.
   Art Linkletter was right when he said kids say the darnedest things.