MARK KENNEDY: One of the joys of parenting is hearing the funny things your kids say. Entertainer Art Linkletter, who died last year, was right when he said, “Kids say the darndest things.” Just the other day, my 4-year-old son came home from pre-school singing a religious-themed song. The last line was, “Hallelujah, hallelujah, Amen.” Instead, he heard (and sang enthusiastically): “Howyoudoin’, Howyoudoin’, Old Man.” I hope God has a sense of humor.
KAREN NAZOR HILL: As a mother of four adult children, and 4-year-old and 9-month-old granddaughters, I’m always telling parents of young children to write down the cute and funny things they say. You’ll forget more than you remember if you don’t write it down. It’s not only what they say that’s funny. It’s how they say it and their mannerisms. My mother and I took my granddaughter out to eat and shopping on a recent Saturday. My mother was telling, with emphasis, a dramatic story about one of her friends, when my granddaughter (her great-granddaughter) piped in, “Calm down, Nannie. Calm down. It’s going to be OK.” It took us by surprise. A 4-year-old telling an 82-year-old to calm down made us all laugh.
MARK: My boys have a thing for twisted lyrics. My 4-year-old was playing with one of those musical birthday cards the other day, and dancing to a song by the Pointer Sisters. When he hears a song lyric he doesn’t understand, he just plugs in a word that rhymes. Thus my son sauntered through the family room, shaking his hips and singing: “I’m on a DIET, and I just can’t HIDE IT.”
(FYI, my favorite twisted lyric of all time was from Phoebe on the sitcom “Friends” She misheard Elton John’s song “Tiny Dancer” and sang: “Hold me closer Tony Danza.” Off topic, I know, but priceless nonetheless.)
KAREN: Child experts will tell you that you should never speak “baby” talk to a child or repeat what they pronounce incorrectly, but I do it anyway. My granddaughter says “hungary” for hungry. When she was little, for whatever reason, she said “die do” for diaper. I now say it as well. She changed our 12-year-old Chihuahua’s name from Poka to Popo, so our entire family now says Popo. The only one in the family who calls the dog Poka is my granddaughter. Go figure. My oldest daughter, 37, said “saunch” for sandwich when she was 2. I still said “saunch.”
MARK: Remember, parents out there, write these gems down. If you don’t, you’ll forget 90 percent of them. What a loss.