My Daughter Said She'd Burn This Book! -- by L. David Mark

      As Art Linkletter (I’m sure some of you remember him) used to say, "Kids say the darndest things!" Well, my grandkids are no slouch in this department & here are a few examples:

***

Marriage and the Gene Pool

The occasion:

Sometime during the summer of 2008 when my daughter Cindy and her family were visiting us.

The characters:

Noah, my oldest grandaughter, age 9 at the time;
Maggy, her 8-year-old sister;
Yonah, her 5-year-old brother.

Cindy recorded verbatim the following conversation between Yonah and Noah:

      Yonah: "Noah, when I grow up, I’m gonna marry Maggy."
      Noah: "You can’t marry Maggy."
      Yonah: "Why not?"
      Noah: "It’s against the law."
      Yonah: "Why?"
      Noah: "Even God would be angry if you married Maggy."
      Yonah: "Why?"
      Noah: "Because your gene pool would be too small."
      Yonah: "You mean I would be too small?"
      Noah: "No. Your gene pool would be too small."
      Yonah: "Maggy would be too small?"
      Noah: "No. Your gene pool would be too small."
      Yonah: "What do you mean?"
      Noah: "Your gene pool would be too small."
      Yonah: "What’s a gene pool?"
      Noah: "It’s like what makes you have brown hair and brown eyes. And if you married Maggy, then no one in the world would have brown hair and brown eyes. Maybe they’d have white hair and white eyes. Maybe."
      Yonah: "Ewww!"
      Noah: "Yes, you see. It’s gross."

      Yonah then came to Cindy and said, "When I grow up, I’m going to marry somebody, just anybody, and I’m going to eat all the chocolate I want!"

***

How Big Is My Room?

     More recently (summer of 2009) Cindy told me that one day Tal (her youngest son at three-and-a-half years old) came up to her and asked -- not in an accusing way, but just as a question -- "How come my room is smaller than my younger sister’s?"

***

Growing Old With Difficulty

      And in October 2009, I called Cindy & after a few minutes, she said, “Do you want to talk to Noah?”

      “Sure,” I said. And after chatting for a while with Noah (she’ll be 11 this December), Mary came in the room & started jumping up & down about something I had done -- or failed to do -- I can’t remember which.

      When Noah overheard her taking me to task, she said, “I hope I won’t be that difficult when I grow up!”

###