The Things Kids Say...
My four children said a lot, and thankfully I wrote a lot of it down
Emma, then 12 years old: “Dad, why do you write about us?”
“Family is fodder.”
Everyone, it seems, has family stories built on memorable moments — happy, sad, funny, tragic, embarrassing, enlightening, obscure, or life changing. While I’ve never been a diarist like my grandmother, who jotted things down daily for the majority of her life, I found myself often capturing the quotes of our now-adult children.
They gave me no shortage of material.
Some of that material became essays/entries that I posted on an earlier version of “Our Reality Show” — hence Emma’s query. The big picture idea was that at some point I’d turn the material into a book they could share with their children and grandchildren, but that hasn’t happened except here on the web.
Still, I recommend the process. Writing down these quotes helped capture small insights — ones that otherwise would be lost — into the personalities of my kids at a moment in time. Recently, digging through the archives, I found a list I compiled several years ago and laughed at what they said, even if I couldn’t remember the specific circumstances some 15-20 years later.
Given the serious nature of everything these days, between hurricanes and elections and October surprises, I thought publishing it here would be a lighthearted midweek palate cleanser. So here we go…
Scribbles and Bits: Voices from the Past
• Ben (circa 2011): "If a boy can still sing 'Gary, Indiana,' then I'm telling you, his voice has NOT changed."
• Nicholas, not the sports fan, watching a football game with us: “When is intermission?”
• Talking to Emma as we drove the obstacle course that is Northern Virginia.:
— E: I heard it was pothole awareness month.
— Me: Do you think they're doing anything about it?
— E (hoping she doesn't fall into one): Funny, Dad. You're funny.
• Kate, after drinking a Slurpee to mark getting her braces off: "My tongue looks like my hair did" when it was dyed. "But then, my head looked like a fire hydrant."
• Ben: You know you're in a theater family when you "call out" sick rather than "call in" sick.
• Emma, after I asked her to pick up some coffee with “three shots” at Starbucks while I got gas at a nearby service station: "Can I buy those? I'm just a kid."
• Nicholas: "You know you're in trouble when the parent pulls out the middle name."
• Ben: "When a girl asks, 'Do these pants make my butt look fat?' don't agree — it's just good common sense."
• Nicholas, then 16 and in the midst of the self-described “dark ages”: “Buying stuff is just the manly version of shopping.”
• Emma: "Sure they tell you that you can eat all the ice cream you want when you have your tonsils taken out. What they don't tell you is you won't want to eat a thing after that happens, and that sucks."
• Ben (circa 2010): "Have you noticed that British people don't talk like us, but when they sing you can't tell the difference?"
• Nicholas: “I’m so ADD I get distracted reading a picture book.”
• Kate, then going through a visual arts phase: "Lips are tough, but I hate drawing ears. Every time I try to make them look realistic they look like my small intestine."
• Ben at 13, upon being told that the conductor would be watching him as he rode unaccompanied on the train to New York: "I don't know about that. I'm not sure I want him watching me watching 'Dexter.' That could be a little awkward."
• Emma, after dropping her at a friend's house slathered in holiday lights: "I feel so under decorated."
• Ben: "I like snow, but when it doesn't give you a snow day, it's useless."
In case you missed them, here are some other (in)famous family stories…
