Out of the Mouths of Babes

Today's is a short post, but I have had a couple interactions with children lately that bear repeating.

A mother and toddler came into the toy store a few days ago, and the following took place:

Me: "Hi, how are you ladies doing today?"
Mother: (to daughter) "Do you wanna tell her why we're here?"
Toddler: "I get a prize!"
Mother: "Now tell her why."
Toddler: "I pooped!"
Me: "That's really good!"
Toddler: "In the potty bucket!"
Me: "That's a good place to do it!"
Toddler: "Twenty times!"
Me: "That's a lot!"
Mother: "We're all really excited about it."



Last week, a young girl came in with her dad, trying to pick out a book to give to her friend.  She and her friend were both eleven, but while the friend had a higher-than-average reading level, the girl shopping for her had a slightly below average reading level.  This didn't deter her, though.  Since I know the books we carry better than anyone who was there that day, I was fetched.  Turned out, both little girls LOVED reading.  For the gift, the girl told me that her friend loved "funny books about middle school."  I showed her I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President.  I recommend it to anyone, really.  It's hysterical.

The girl was so excited to get her friend a book that her dad let her pick one out for herself.  This was when she told me her reading level wasn't quite 6th grade.  However, instead of being discouraged by this fact, she was very forthright.  She loved reading, and knew what was and wasn't beyond her.  I showed her Redwall.  It's about a fourth or fifth grade reading level, and after she flipped through it with her dad, agreed that it was just challenging enough to be interesting, but not too challenging to be frustrating.  It was so cool to see how excited she was.



The next one didn't happen to me, but to my coworker.  We sell little mystery Lego minifigures, and just got a new set in.  Kids love coming in and trying to guess which one they're going to get, based on the parts they can feel.  A little boy, about nine or ten, came in and was determined to get "the paintball guy."  My coworker told him that she was hoping to find "the bee guy," which, yes, is a minifigure that looks like an anthropomorphized bee.  The kid spent about fifteen minutes feeling all the little packages, finally picking two.  About five minutes later he came back, bee guy in hand.  He didn't want that one, so he wanted my coworker to have it.  She was so touched she bought him a new one.



Lastly, I got to talk to my friend's two year old last night.  She was very polite, shook my hand and said "Pleasetameeyou."  She is adorable.