The Fountain of Youth 7/25/2021

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

This week has been one of those weeks.  Any time I have the slightest moment of peace, my mind immediately moves on to all the things that are up and coming in the days ahead and while my actual person may not be busy for that moment, my brain still manages to conjure up enough activity to merit plenty of exhaustion.  In the moments I attempt distraction, sometimes by scrolling through social media which is probably not the greatest source that I could look to, I am hearing many people relate stories of their offspring.  I think it’s because of the impending coming school year I am noticing people either relating tales of their littles or reminiscing of the childhoods of those who are on their way to adulthood.  All these recollections have me doing a few of my own.  So, sit back, relax and enjoy as I share a few amusing anecdotes from the mouths of babes.

One thing that children are hilariously famous for is mispronunciation and misunderstanding. I know currently I can speak to the former in my own household.  There is one word that my daughter still to this day mispronounces and accordingly, my husband, myself, my mother and most of the family now pronounces this word incorrectly as well. Doesn’t every family do this?  A child says a word and from then on the whole of her kin embraces the mistake as simply the way the word is.  The word of choice in our household is “minute”.  My daughter says and has always said it as “minick.” Now, even in the most professional situations I find myself using the term and shooting sideways glances around the room to see if anyone noticed my unintended consonant exchange.  I’ll use the term around my mom and chuckle. We find it funny because we both know she does the same thing.  It’s just our standard vocabulary now.  When I was little, I did the same thing.  I said “worm” instead of “warm”.  I remember my mom using that term for ages.  Little did I know that she used it because when I was little that is what I said.  Apparently, I also for a while as a very small child said “boo cuss” instead of “school bus” which my mom found very endearing.   She still to this day will occasionally have an outburst announcing such terminology at the passing of a long yellow passenger vehicle.

Speaking of humorous tales that my mother could tell, she used to teach as a substitute when I was in elementary school, and she can spin a yarn or two from those days.  I remember very fondly her telling me once of an experience she had from substituting for a kindergarten teacher.  It was a day of bad weather.  Things got so bad that the ever practiced, rarely used tornado drill had to be put into action.  I clearly remember us doing trial runs of this on many occasions. I can only recall this once that we ever had to go out to the hallways with our hard books held over our heads while the teachers did their best to keep us as quiet as possible.  We were told to listen for the sound of the tornado, and we were told it would sound like a train.  Now let me just add here, I have since these days heard actual tornados and they do definitely sound like the roar of a freight train inches from your head.  However, on this day thankfully, I don’t think the storm was as close as had been predicted.  But there we all were, children pressed against the decades old wood of the walls of the hallway peeking out from under books with nervous gazes.  I clearly remember just waiting on the train sound and how it could possibly spell our demise.  I am not sure why we were told to listen closely for it.  That seems a bit morbid looking back.  You’d think they would want us to be thinking of something distracting and pleasant.  But as per usual, I digress.  I still smile as I remember my mom telling of one little boy in the class she had who raised his hand to say something. She went to him.  He informed her that he had definitely heard the tornado because he heard something go “Choo Choooooo”. I am still chuckling and I have heard this all my life.  Oh kids…so adorable.

Then there is the story of the raisins.  Again, my parents related this story to me not long after it happened and it’s still definitely something else.  When I was roughly 6, my next-door neighbors had 2 children: a girl my age and a boy 3 years our junior.  We had all been outside playing that day for the better part of the daylight hours.  Well, our playtime ended as did the day. During the wee hours of the night my parents heard something fiddling with the back door.  Expecting no telling what sort of dangerousness my dad stealthily made his wary to the back door.  There stood the little boy, all three years’ worth of him, where he had left his home, which had an alarm system that he had apparently disarmed, walked in the middle of the night to our house and was attempting to come in the back door. And why do you suppose would a such a wee lad made such a trek? He wanted more raisins. Apparently during our playtime my mom had given out the little boxes of raisins as a snack and he had taken the notion that, at around midnight, he wanted seconds.  How he got out of his house without waking his whole household up is a mystery that remains unsolved.

So, whenever your world is feeling at either end of the spectrum be it monotony or chaos, if you know of a child you can converse with, do so.  Whether they tell you the importance of cleaning horses’ hooves or how one chooses a crystal to make their light saber (both of which are significant topics my daughter has recently felt the need to cover) I can assure you that fascination will likely be the in the discussion.  You might learn a thing or two or possibly even laugh until your cheeks are wet with tears.  Whatever nuggets of wisdom you garner though, hold on to them tightly because such moments like the children from whence they come, certainly don’t last.