By Margarita, the LOL Library Lady, September/2020

When I worked in a large daycare in Vancouver, I jotted down some of the funny things the younger after-school kids said. Now, more than ever, we need a laugh, so here’s a compilation of the best ones. Enjoy!

(If you want to contribute, do tell us some of the gems you’ve collected about your kids and grand kids! Oh, they do bring the funny! And, keep us humble. LOL)

• While playing a group game in teams that included target-tossing with beanbags, I had a five-year old-child on my team, precocious Marcus. When it was my turn to toss the beanbag – near the end of the game – he yelled the following at me, with great camaraderie: “C’mon, old lady, we can win this!” My laugh burst out before I could stop it, and with that encouragement, I gave the winning toss.

• Raphael, after storytime, finds a kids’ anatomy book and studies its vague, cartoon-y illustrations. He suddenly announces to the group, “Hey everyone, did you know the penis is attached to the brain?!” The other care workers and I worked hard at stifling a laugh.

• Norman, a five-year-old boy with a love of toilet humour, makes a paper boat at craft time and I watch him thoughtfully print out its name on the bow: “SS HINIE”.

• A young boy, Lee, has a pee accident and has a wet spot on the front of his pants. During craft time, I see he has taped his small cartoon drawing to the front of his pants. He says, “This is my tattoo.” A creative save while his pants dry!

• Allan makes a Christmas card for his mom and dad and I peek at it as he’s writing, in big block letters: “I love yor food yu make mee. I love yor money $$$!”

• A little girl in JK, Anneka, comes up to me sitting at the snack table, with her group, and cups my face with food-sticky hands. She whispers sweetly: “ I want to play with you.”

• Billy was told by a doctor that he had fluid in his ears, and couldn’t really understand this. He brings this information to snack time and asks his table-mate, Monika, “What’s ‘fluids’?” She thinks for a moment, and replies, “You know, milk, juice…water?” When Corrie, a care worker, asks Billy a question and he obviously can’t hear her properly, he shouts, “Hey, my ears are full of milk and juice!”

• At snack time, a few six-year-olds at one table are talking about allergies, and the symptoms, and one boy exclaims, “If you pee on yourself you get a rash! I tried!”

• Timmy, one winter, during snack, had something to tell me. Earnestly, he expressed, “I think I saw someone today. Walking on my street!” “Who?”, I asked, curious about this mysterious but obviously important “someone.” He replied in an awed whisper, “Santa!”

• I see four-year-old Stefanie and Maryam making air-kissy noises in random directions, all around themselves, while lining up. With joyful faces, they tell me, “We’re kissing the world!”

• Lily displayed her distraction techniques when she was in trouble: When one of the care workers directs her, “Finish your snack now, and please stop throwing it at other people. Snacks are for eating not –” Lily interrupts her with a pointedly serious, and current-news, question: “What about that Barack Obama, anyway?”

• Three seven-year-old boys were bickering while playing a card game called SLAMWICH (a WAR-type card game). One boy pauses the game to say, “If we keep playing this game, it will eat us alive!”

• Six-year old Tessa tells me: “My mom likes wine when she gets home from work. But when Grandma comes over they drink ALL the wine and the vodka!”

And here’s my favourite comment, about the kids, said by a teacher:

• While picking up the children from their classes at school, I overheard a Kindergarten teacher talking to a parent about the stories heard at school and at home.

Teacher: “I’ll tell you what, I’ll only believe 50 per cent of what they tell me at school if you’ll do the same with what they tell you at home!”
The mom laughed heartily and agreed.

LOLs,

Margarita!

(*Note: For privacy, all the children’s names have been changed.)