Conversations with Little People, Part IX

[dolorosa_12]

I was in Melbourne last week, staying with my father, stepmother and two little sisters. Kitty is now eight, and Nell is three, so as you can imagine, there were lots of amusing conversations with that special breed of young-child logic. Here are a few of my favourites:

Our family is complicated
Ronni (getting out of the car): Hey, Dad, it's okay! I can get my own bag.
Nell: He's not your dad! He's my Dad!

Nell is fuzzy when it comes to banal stuff like dates and time
Nell: Why are you here?
Ronni: I'm here because I want to visit you and Kitty and Dad and your mum, because I love you all!
Nell (suspiciously): How long are you here?
Ronni: Four days. (Counting on her fingers) Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Then I'm going back to Sydney.
Nell (shouting, to Kitty): Hey! Ronni's here for four weeks!

Religion is tricky
(For context, we are watching Kitty and her school friends sing Christmas carols in the Catholic church over the road from their (Catholic) school.)
Nell's four-year-old friend, J, to his mother: Is Jesus dead?
C (his mother): Yes. [Careful! Your atheism is showing!]
J: If he's dead, how can he save us?
C (looking increasingly worried): Well...umm, Jesus is a special case.
J (apparently satisfied by this): So, did Jesus help Santa build the sleigh?

Are the clouds made of milk?
(This is my personal favourite.)
Dad and Alice, my stepmother, are sitting outside in the backyard. Nell wanders out.

Nell: The sky looks like a tea-set.
Dad, Alice and Ronni: *are confused*
Alice: What do you mean, Nell?
Nell (emphatically): It's a tea-set!
Ronni: Do you mean that the colours look the same as the colours of a tea-set?
Nell (thinks for a while): Yes.
Ronni: Do you have a tea-set with those colours?
Nell: *is confused*

TWO HOURS LATER
Alice: OH! She meant 'sunset', not 'tea-set'!

A lot of other awesome stuff has happened since then, including a delicious breakfast with lucubratae and his fabulous girlfriend, some of the best chocolate cake ever, cooked by my friend K, and many evenings spent at my grandparents' place, but that will all have to wait, as I'm off to meet my mum for coffee at the always-marvellous Bunker (which sells Campos coffee!).

Comments

[cereswunderkind.livejournal.com]

[http://users.livejournal.com/_menthapiperita/]

The clouds are made of milk!

Is Nell okay sharing her father with you now?

[dolorosa-12.livejournal.com]

I think she figured out what was going on after a while. She is three, though, which is the age of 'mine, mine, mine', so her attitude makes sense.