I am checking out a mother and her young daughter, likely kindergarten age. The mother is distracted with a young baby in a stroller but the daughter is diligently passing the items to me.

I am surprised when I hear the daughter humming “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver!

Me: “Oh, that’s one of my favorite tunes!”

Young Girl: “Me, too! We learned it in school today! Look, I even made a picture!”

The young girl then magically produces a piece of paper with bright marker stick people and the name of the song on top. Immediately, I notice a couple of things: the word “Home” is missing an M, and more importantly, the word “Country” is missing an O.

Me: “Oh… that’s… lovely.”

The mother realizes what is happening and snatches the artwork from her daughter.

Mother: “No, [Young Girl]! This is special art for Mommy’s eyes only, remember!”

Our two kids have just gotten a small ice cream each.

Four-Year-Old: “Mommy, Mommy, what is this?”

They point at the dark-chocolate-covered top of the ice cream. The four-year-old chirps in a happy tune that only children can come up with.

Four-Year-Old: “It’s poo-coloured!”

They had no idea why I started laughing out loud.

It’s 2016. Our priest is showing some kids a picture of the Hindu god Krishna. He has a weapon called a sudarshana chakra, which spins on his finger.

Kid: “Look, he has a fidget spinner!”

This happens during a catechism lesson when all the kids are drawing or otherwise occupied with manual activities. My daughter, who’s six or seven, is a combination of sheltered and curious and has no filter whatsoever.

Daughter: “If coffee contains caffeine and tea contains theine, does Coke contain cokeine?”

The teacher reprimanded her a LOT, and gave us a piece of her mind when we picked up our daughter, as well. That evening, we imparted to my daughter a crash course about drugs.

Back in 1970, my uncle and aunt took my younger brother, then age four, and me on a trip to the original Legoland in Denmark. 

About halfway there, we were driving on a main road with a speed limit of 80 km/h. As we drove over the top of a hill, there was a sign saying 60 km/h, and immediately after that there was a cable or something running across the road which I was told was used to measure the speed of all the cars driving over it. 

At the bottom of the hill, my uncle was waved to the side of the road by a policeman.

The policeman checked my uncle’s driver’s license, and after a while, he handed him a piece of paper which I now know must have been a fine. He then told my uncle to have a nice day and to drive carefully.

This was the moment my little brother lost all faith in the police, and he asked the policeman: 

Brother: “Aren’t you going to bring him in?”