Silly Things Adults Say

Winning the war of words

Originally published 17 December 2016

Every day I’m watching the things going on around me, listening to the things people say, and picking up new things I can say and do myself. Since I spend so much time with Mummy and Daddy it’s natural that a lot of what I pick up comes from them. Which is a shame, since sometimes they say such silly things…

Here’s one example: When the sun’s out I love to play in my sandpit, getting little piles of it into my pants and hair that I can then distribute by walking through the house. I also enjoy building little piles of sand outside the sandpit, so that my cars can drive over it or diggers can lift it. One time when I was in the middle of tipping sand out of my sandpit Mummy warned me with, "When the sand is gone, it's gone".

That’s not much of a revelation really. If she’d said “When the sand is gone, it will magically refill itself”, that would be impressive. But knowing that it’s gone when it’s gone – I could work that out for myself.

Another silly thing they say is when they’re trying to get me dressed. They’ll get as far as changing my nappy, then try to convince me to put on something I don’t want to wear by saying, "It’s pants or nothing".

That’s the surest way of me always picking "nothing", since it gets me out of wearing the thing I didn’t want to put on anyway. It’s not quite the reaction Mummy had in mind, so she probably should have thought that one through a little better.

Dinnertime is another occasion when silly sayings tend to come out, especially if they’re trying to convince me to eat something that looks like it belongs more in one of the cat’s dishes. Often there will be bribes involved to get me to eat more.

A week ago we all went to the daycare Christmas party, and when we sat down to have our picnic dinner I wanted to eat a yummy roll instead of the sausage they’d given me. Mummy pointed to a part of the sausage about half-way down, and said, "You can have a treat if you eat as far as that". So I then skipped most of the sausage and took a bite out of only where Mummy pointed. There you go – I ate exactly where you told me to, so pass me the treat please.

Now who’s the clever one?