The funny things kids say, and why you forget them by Friday
· 4 min read
Kids say something brilliant almost every day, and parents forget nearly all of it. Why that happens, and a simple habit that fixes it.
Small kids are funny by accident. They are building a language out of spare parts and applying perfect logic to a world nobody has explained yet. So you get things like:
- “Bath water is just soup for people.”
- “When you were little, were there colours yet?”
- “Sharks are just water dogs.”
- “I’m not crying, my eyes are just sweating.”
You hear one, you laugh, you think: I will remember that forever. A week later you remember that something funny happened in the bath.
Why they disappear
It isn’t that you weren’t paying attention. Three things work against you.
- The wording is the joke. You remember the gist, and the gist of “soup for people” is “something about soup.”
- There are too many. A talkative four-year-old says a good one most days. Memory keeps the highlights of a year, not the Tuesdays.
- The phase ends without warning. One day they say “spaghetti” correctly and you can’t recall when “pasgetti” stopped.
The habit that works
Write it down within a minute, in the exact words, in one place. That’s all. Each part matters.
- Within a minute, because the wording fades first.
- Exact words, including the mistakes. The mistakes are the treasure.
- One place, because a line scattered across texts, notes and photos is as good as lost.
Add their name and age. Add one line about what was going on if you can. Future you will want to know why they were talking about sharks.
What to do with them
A list is fine. But the lines deserve better than a list, and you’ll look at them more often if they look like something. Put one on the fridge. Send one to a grandparent. At the end of the year, read them all in order: it’s the fastest way to see how much a small person changed.
And on slow weeks, when nothing comes to mind, ask them something. “What do you think the moon is for?” rarely fails.
