Things Children Say: Part 2

Last week I had a chat with my son’s kindergarten principal. I wanted to find out how he’s doing at school. Generally, she said he doesn’t like writing or colouring but enjoys reading time and his listening comprehension is very good.

And then she said, “He even participates in group discussions.” I thought, wow! My 3 year old son can speak up during class discussion. It’s more than I can say for many university students I’ve met. Heck, even a lot of adults don’t speak up at meetings.

But then, Abang has been talking since he was a year old. By the time his first birthday came around, he could say “Mummy” and “Daddy” very clearly. He also had specific words like “biyapi” which was “keretapi”. We have always made it a point not to baby talk to him or Adik and so far it seems to show good results.

We also try as far as possible to make sure we use correct grammar, rather than trying to ‘simplify’ things for him. If there’s one thing we have learnt is that children are much smarter than we usually give them credit for!

In fact, lately, his English has improved by leaps and bounds.

Once at KLCC, Breitling had an exhibition at the centre court with an actual airplane there. He was so excited, he exclaimed, “Wow this is so big! See? See how big it is?”

Another time he suddenly bumped into me and I asked him, “Hey, what did you do that for?” He answered, “I’m trying to avoid something.” I don’t think I knew the word “avoid” until I was much older!

Then there are other instances:

“I want to show you where the toy is.” And not “… where is the toy.”

"I don't like this song," he told me in the car while listening to the radio. So I changed radio stations and asked him if he liked that song instead. He answered, "I don't like this song either."

“Hey look! Adik is trying to figure out how to play the game.”

“Look, Mummy, I am much taller than the cow!”

Of course, sometimes, it’s just plain funny. (Well, embarrassing to me but funny to the third party). At the hairdresser he was given a sweet so I was trying to coax a ‘thank you’ out of him, “Oh, how nice of Auntie to give you a sweet! What do you say?” And he said, “Nak lagi.” Talk about embarrassing, not only does my son not know his manners, he’s a greedy little fella to boot!

This is my all-time favourite:

“Abang, let’s go visit Auntie Mary and we can give her the baby gift. Aunty Mary just had a new baby, you know?”

Pause. Then with a touch of concern on his face, he asked,

“What happened to the old baby?”