(I am a summer camp counselor. I am waiting for the next activity with my campers on a bench when we spot a spider on the bench next to us. The campers are around ages seven to nine.)
Me: “Oh, hey, there’s a little spider here. Watch out for it!”
Camper #1: “That’s a jumping spider!”
Me: “Really? Do you like spiders?”
Camper #1: “Yeah! I study spiders a lot!”
Camper #2: “I like to study cars!”
Camper #3: “I study human weakness.”
(I am visiting my nephews and telling stories of them when they were babies. They are teens now so they cringe when they hear the stories.)
Me: “[Oldest], you were probably the cutest. For whatever reason, you preferred to sleep on my shoulder to anywhere else, so when you’d get sleepy, you’d crawl away from your mom over to me so I would pick you up. Your mom wouldn’t let me see you for months because of that.”
Mom: *from across the house, while oldest cringes* “I still haven’t forgiven you for that!”
Middle Nephew: “What about me? What did I do?”
Me: “You… always liked to play with the DVD player.”
Middle Nephew: “Like… the remote?”
Me: “No… the DVD player. You’d crawl over and stand up in front of it. I had mine about–” *puts hand a little under two feet from the ground* “–about this high. So, you’d go to it, press the button, and giggle. But then the tray would come out, hit you in the face, and knock you down, so you’d cry. I’d pick you up so you’d stop and you’d go do it again.”
Youngest Nephew: *while middle nephew cringes* “Ha! That sounds just like him! What about me?”
Me: “Oh, you didn’t like me as a baby.”
Youngest Nephew: “Why not?”
Me: “Well… when you were a baby, [Ex] helped me babysit you guys one night. I took those two outside to play while you were getting your diaper changed. I came back in to check after a little bit and stood over you and said, ‘Bah!’ It scared you so much, you somehow sprayed poop and pee all over [Ex] as you cried. We cleaned it all up and she had to go home, change, and come back, but you wanted nothing to do with me until you got older.”
(I’ve been a swim coach for the past ten years, and every summer I get at least one moment that reminds me of how nine-year-olds always keep you on your toes. The swimmer is this story is a nine-year-old girl with a rainbow swimsuit and a pink glittery swim cap. Just a little bundle of bubbly girl power.)
Swimmer: “Coach, coach, I know what car is yours!”
Me: “Oh? What car?”
Swimmer: “The orange one, because orange is your favorite color.”
Me: *looking down and realizing I’m in my bright orange swimsuit and sunglasses today* “Yeah, I guess it is.”
Swimmer: “Why is orange your favorite color?”
Me: “Because it’s a happy color.”
Swimmer: “I like black.”
(Before I can ask why black is her favorite color, the nine-year-old swimmer flexes her arms and squats down as she scream-growls:)
Swimmer: “BECAUSE I’M METAL!”
(The swimmer proceeded to stand up, giggle, and run over to the pool to dive in like nothing had happened and leaving me to burst into fits of shocked laughter.)
(I have taken my daughter to the mall so she can play on the indoor playground. While we’re there, a little girl of about five or six years old strikes up a conversation with me.)
Girl: “My name is Kaylyn.”
Me: “That’s pretty.”
Girl: “Yeah, but sometimes my mom calls me Emma.”
Me: “She does?”
Girl: “Well, that’s actually my name. But I call myself Kaylyn.”
(I am riding the metro and a little kid is acting rambunctious. To calm and distract him, his mother decides to read the list of stations the train stops at from the digital sign. It works well, until…)
Mother: “So then, the train stops at Farragut North, and then at Metro Center, and then at Gallery Place-Chinatown–”
(At the mention of this last station, the boy’s eyes go wide with excitement and he joyfully exclaims:)
Boy: “YOU MEAN THIS TRAIN GOES ALL THE WAY TO CHINA?”
