When we are blessed with children, we have funny, nostalgic or outrageous anecdotes to tell about from their youngest years.
My older two are 18 months apart, and they almost always did things in tandem when small.
They were about three and four years old when we moved into a house where the backyard had not been cleared of thick undergrowth. "Helping" to clear the backyard growth one day, the three-year-old , who always has had a vivid imagination, flew out from the undergrowth, which was as tall as he, and excitedly announced he had seen a bear. Calming him, I told him it could have been a dog. It actually was nothing.
That evening at the dinner table, I related to the boys' dad about the adventure, the three -year-old seeing a bear.
The older brother, feeling his 18-month-older superiority, sarcastically asked if the "bear" had chased his brother to the house, if his brother had slammed the door on the bear, and if the bear had huffed and puffed to blow the house down.
The younger stated, also sarcastically: It wasn't the wolf; it was the bear.
Another episode with these same two siblings went like this. Before seat belts, we parents know that, often, children in the back seat would hang over the back of the front seat while chattering away to the mom and dad in the front.
Unable to keep a secret, the three-year-old, hanging over the back of the seat, said to me just before Christmas, “We have a surprise for you.” Knowing he would tell me, I asked what it was. He said, “It's a surprise, and it's not a yellow nightgown.” His four-year-old brother just groaned in disbelief. We parents probably have a trunk full of such anecdotes we could tell.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Outrageous anecdotes told by our children