Out of the Mouths of Toddlers

This is what passes for chit-chat around here…

“Anna, Anna, you’re not listening to me. I climbed the rainbow!”
“I climbed the rainbow and I tumbled down and I cried.”
“I’m a boy.” [Timmy said that. He’d be right.]
“I’m a girl. Sometimes I be Charlie when I’m a boy, and sometimes I be Lola. And sometimes you be Charlie.”
“And sometimes I be in a river and I go underwater.”
“And sometimes you pop up.”
“I went to a circus-festival, and it had happy carrots in it, with controls and I didn’t like it. I just liked the carrot ones.”
(The above was all one conversation, diligently transcribed verbatim. There were no pauses when the conversation did a 180 into sur-reality, just one steady stream of chatter.)

While eating lunch:
“I’m a cucumber baby.”
“I’m a mummy.”
“Awww, my baaybeee. Mwah!”
“Baby, be careful on the swing! Be careful on the swing, says mummy!”
“Look, I’m a half-moon!”
(Guess what our vegetable was?)

“Ha! You have a stinky-bum. You’re stinky!”
“I’m not stinky!”
“But your bum is stinky.”
“I’m not stinky.”
“I smell your bum.”
“I have a poop in me, and it will come out soon.”
“I needa go pee.”
“I need to go, too.”

Which, of course, leads to a conversation about undergarments.
“I have unnerwears.”
“No, you have panties.”
“I have unnerwears and that is panties, too.”
“I have tighty-whiteys.”
“And tighty-whiteys is unnerwear for boys.”

And, staring into the potty, after their mission is accomplished:
“Look! You made a rainbow!”
(Who couldn’t check, after that? No disgusting myriad of colour, thank heavens, just a tidy, reeking curve. But of course! Anyone who sees an arc of sh poo immediately thinks of the beauteous wash of glowing colour that is ‘rainbow’…)

“Glory to the newborn king. Born the new king at the whole world. AH-men!”
“Helpful your newborn king is very better and flatter.”
“AH-men!”

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