My grandson Tyler was in the bathroom the other day, when we heard him knocking on the door from the inside. Thinking that maybe he had locked himself in, someone went to try and help. But the problem actually turned out to be that there was no toilet paper in the bathroom...

My mom used to have the habit of saying, "Oh, pooh!" whenever something went wrong. When Michelle was about 3, she would imitate my mom's saying. One night, we took the kids to a baseball game, and when one of our players dropped the ball, Michelle looked at Mom and said, "Oh, pooh! Right, Grandma?"...

Kurt was making bad grades in several subjects, and was required to study all of them every night, whether he had homework or not. In desperation, he tried to insist that he shouldn't have to study civics, because the only reason he was getting bad grades in that class was because he kept putting down the wrong answers...

When our old cat Fluffy had a litter of kittens, of course all the kids kept wanting to hold them and play with them. Emily was about 11 when one particular litter was being invaded, and decided that the kittens had had enough human contact. Being the bossy older sister, she told her brothers, "You guys need to leave these kittens intact!"...

Once when Fluffy had just had a new litter of kittens, a male cat from one of her previous litters decided to relieve her of a lot of the responsibility of motherhood. He would get in the middle of the kittens and start licking them. Fluffy would try moving them to a new location, then Carlos would come along and move them all to a new spot, and continue his grooming of them...

One Sunday morning after Sunday School, the two youngest boys were each eating the candy they had received while they were there. All of a sudden, Nick reached over and took a handful of Crys' candy and ate it. Of course, Crystopher threw a fit, but Nick's response was "We learned in Sunday School today that we're supposed to share, and I'm sharing with you!...

A few years ago, Nicholas woke up on a Sunday morning with a bad cold. He was coughing, sneezing, and had watery eyes. He still wanted to go to Sunday School, but I told him his cold was too bad. He said "But I feel like going!" I explained to him that he could give other kids his cold if he went. When my husband got up a little bit later, Nick said to him, "I can't go to Sunday School today, Dad, because I might make people sick!"...

About a year ago, Crystopher came up with a unique excuse for not doing the dishes - he had a cold, and it had occurred to him that if he were to cough on the dishes, it could make someone else sick...

Recently, I was grocery shopping with 10-year-old Nicholas. We were buying eggs, and he pointed to a carton on the shelf and said "These are *real* chicken eggs - I can tell because they're brown!"...

When I talk to three-year-old Kryslyn on the phone, she will *show* me things over the phone, assuming that I can see them...

Which brings to mind when my daughters Camille and Michelle were little and my own mom lived out of state. She would call and talk to them, and they would answer yes or no questions by shaking or nodding their heads...

My soon-to-be-three year old granddaughter, Kryslyn, loves to pretend. One of her favorite things to be is a cat. She crawls around on the floor meowing, and whenever she is a cat, she insists on being called Jalopy (pronounced JALL-opy!)...

When Nick was a few years younger, we were in the car on a cloudless day. We drove through an industrial district, and he was watching plumes of white smoke coming out of a huge smokestack. He turned to me and asked, "Is that where they make clouds?"...

In first grade, Crystopher was nearly always very well behaved at school. One afternoon when he came home, just to tease him, I asked if he had gotten in trouble at school that day. I was expecting him to indignantly respond "No!", so I was a little surprised when his eyes got big, and he exclaimed wonderlingly, "How did you know?!"...

The kids all have chores every day, which, of course, they sometimes try to get out of, or do just halfway. One day, Kurt was trying to insist to me that he had, in fact, swept the kitchen floor; that it must have just gotten dirty again since then. Exasperated, I pointed out to him that the very same crumbs were on the floor that were there earlier. Nicholas was there, and he looked at Kurt with a resigned, but somewhat amazed expression and said, "She recognizes crumbs, Kurt!"...

I have a labrador mix puppy, who weighs about 25 lbs. Recently, I went out to get the mail in my pajamas, and he ran out the door right along with me. After he did his business, he took off down the street, and I had to chase him for several blocks. I'm sure it must have been quite a sight - me running after him, and then when I caught him, carrying this dog home, with my mail tucked under my arm, sporting my pink and white pajamas...

When my daughter Michelle was about 4 years old, she was pushing on her chin, and asked me what the hard stuff was. When I told her it was bone, she was amazed. She said "But I thought only meat had bones in it!"...

When I was pregnant with my sixth child, I stopped at a garage sale and bought some receiving blankets and a baby snowsuit. My daughter Rachele was 4 at the time, and she sniffed the blankets and said "Mmmm... these smell like fresh babies"...

This is something you probably didn't know about the father of our country - a couple of years ago, my son Crystopher made George Washington out of a paper plate for a school project. The former president was complete with cotton ball hair, and bloody fangs...

When my husband got his leg amputated, our nephew, Caleb, never seemed to notice that anything was different. One day, my husband asked him if he had seen his leg anywhere. Caleb, very nonchalantly, replied, "You probably took it off and laid it down, and somebody took it"...

When my son Beau was little, if it was ascertained that he had done something wrong, but without anyone having actually seen him do it, he would insist that somebody must have come over while we were gone and done it...

My son Matt used to offer to spank himself when he was young...

Camille had a habit of making me want to fall through the floor when she was little - she was 'refreshingly' honest - pointing out to people how fat they were, how old they had gotten since she had seen them last, etc...

Rachele used to tell what she thought were the funniest jokes when she was little - they always involved dumpsters, and usually the joke was that someone had eaten food, not realizing that it came from the dumpster...

Nicholas hated picking up his toys when he was younger. If he wouldn't get it done, he had to sit in the corner. One night, when he was told to get his toys cleaned up, he looked around at the mess, sighed, and pulled his little chair into the corner and sat down...

My father-in-law, while being one of the most generous and helpful people I have ever known, has a tendency once in a while to be overbearing. When my daughter Emily was very small, I had just gotten together with my current husband. Emily and I were discussing the relationships of different people in the family - who my mother was, etc. She asked who my daddy was, and when I told her I didn't have one, she looked sad for a moment, then said "But Guy shares his daddy with you, doesn't he?" She didn't understand why I burst out laughing when I replied that yes, he sure did - whether I wanted him to or not!...

Kurt has decided that there is a curse in our family, involving the boys and fourth grade. He was a holy terror that year, but once he went to the next grade, he was fine. Nicholas had a rough year in fourth grade - he will be in fifth next year, so we'll see if there's a pattern here...

My poor mother doesn't have a lot of patience with kids any more. A few years ago, she watched 6 of mine at one time. She had gotten onto them quite a bit, and finally was going to make the younger ones take a nap. Crystopher asked if he could have a blanket and lay down on the floor, to which she replied that no, the floor was dirty. He sighed about the dirty floor, then asked "Did I do it?"...

Would you like to listen in on the recipe exchange?

You may always return to the buffet table, to pick up another thread of conversation...

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