We all have our moments...

July 16, 2005
By: L.A. Kohl
(published in the July 20, '05 edition of the "Bullseye")
We all have stories about the funny things our children say. They’re just so dog gone cute – these little tykes that are trying to figure out what words to use at the right moments. There’s even some old saying about “out of the mouths of babes." But I’m finding out that it isn’t just “babes” who come up with some hum-dingers!

Just recently, one of our teenagers (who shall remain nameless) came up with a good one. We were setting down in front of a movie, and for some reason one of the girls decided to ask, “What does DVD stand for?” just as those three letters popped up on the opening screen.

“Well, duh,” our occasionally clueless teen piped in, “it says right there ‘Pure Digital Magic’!”

Oh my – we all looked at her like, “what school did you go to?”

In her defense, she realized her acronym error in an instant, and burst out laughing with the rest of us. (Around here, we try not to laugh at anyone, just with them…so we were glad she joined in the laughter, because we just couldn’t hold it in!)

This is the same girl that made a similar quick assumption four years ago while we were in India. We were walking around this big town, trying to find some type of mailbox or post office to mail letters back home to the states. We weren’t having any luck, but all of a sudden our daughter caught a glimpse of a trash receptacle (about the only one we ever saw in the whole town.) Except she had “mail box” on the brain, and the only thing the little square, blue metal box said was “Use Me."

“Hey, that says “US Mail!” she quickly assumed.

Oh, sure. I can just see it now. Hey, there’s one that says “Japan Mail” and another one that says “China Mail” and by golly, there’s one that says “Timbuktu Mail!"

Okay, so once again she realized that she hadn’t quite spent enough time thinking about what it really said. (Who was her reading comprehension teacher anyway – shucks, homeschooling means you can’t blame anyone else!)

I should quit picking on that particular daughter and move on to another one who also has her fair share of “blonde moments” (like most of us do, regardless of our hair color.) But this particular one is a favorite of ours. We’ve gotten many chuckles out of it over the years.

It was a few years ago, and I had cooked a large bag of frozen, pre-cut chicken wings - using some new recipe that was a hit. The kids were counting them out, figuring out how many each person got. Problem was, after they ate their share and there were no more – they still wanted more because they liked them so much.

This brilliant, mathematical daughter lamented out loud, “If only mom had cooked one times as many, then we’d have plenty!”

Okay – so who was her math teacher, anyway? Ugh!

But alas, it’s time to draw these endless stories to a close, seeing as how the “Bullseye” has only given me one times as much space this week!