Although I’m not blessed with motherhood just yet, I do have four nieces and one nephew. In my desire to be a good aunt, along with my desire to spend quality time with my siblings’ kids, I occasionally took them out for pizza or ice skating or something of that sort on my own. This is when they were a little younger and weren’t too cool to hang out with me. Four of the five are already teens and pre-teens.

They have all had their fair share of making funny, silly comments. In fact, there are many, but I’ll just share a few memorable ones! Note: The youngest is three years old and no attempts have yet been made on my part to take her out without another patient and responsible adult in attendance. The four that are older than her are siblings and have enough comfort and familiarity amongst each other and with me to allow for outings. These are the kids I courageously had over for sleepovers either prior to or followed by a day out at various places on different occasions.

On one of the occasions, we were out having dinner at a crowded neighborhood restaurant. After a day of running around with the kids, I was starving! As I was digging into my food, I accidentally knocked over my drink onto the table and loudly said the four letter word starting with S***! (Yes, shame on me for swearing in front of innocent-eared kids). My 8-year-old niece looked at me and said with clenched teeth, “Tia (aunt in Spanish) Malinda, you’re embarrassing me!” Oops! Double shame on me!

Before my youngest niece (#5) came along, adding on to the number of my parents grandkids, my mom used to take all four kids out for a day with Nana as often as she could. After awhile she decided it was beyond her energy to handle the four of them at once. So she started taking the two older ones on one day and the two younger ones on another separate occasion. I guess they kinda got used to this and liked it this way as well. So one day when I took all four of them out at once, they began to squabble as brothers and sisters do. The youngest one who was probably about five-years-old at the time said, “Next time you have to take only 2 of us at a time like Nana does”.

The youngest and probably the funniest, at least the current champion of laughs is my three-year-old niece. Lately, she seems to be making an effort to share her toys and books. This is no easy task for her as she is the only child and she is very demanding of all the attention (not at all like me, don’t know where she got it from). Her cousin, just a year younger than she is recently came over to play princess dress up with her. When it came time for her cousin to go home, she said her goodbyes to all in her cute, pink coat. This coat just happens to look very similar to my niece’s own pink coat. Not wanting to be a “bad girl” or throw a fit, my niece looked around the room at everyone with such worry and fright on her face, but managed to very casually and curiously ask, “Whose coat is that?” The look on her face said it all. My niece clearly thought this was her coat and that we were giving it away to her cousin, thereby leaving her without the warmth and comfort of her coat. My mom had to re-assure my niece that it was not her coat by quickly grabbing hers from the bedroom and showing it to her. Boy was she relieved!

It amazes me how much this same 3-year-old niece can now talk and express herself so well. It seems like just yesterday she only knew a handful of words. One of those first and to this day favorite words is “NO!”, which she says in a quick, candid and blunt manner.

During her time of limited vocabulary, she was out at a restaurant with her parents and her Nana (my mom). The waitress came over to ask if everyone was ready to order. My niece was sitting in her highchair and took it upon herself to respond for everyone with her favorite word “No!” The waitress was a bit surprised and my family plenty embarrassed.

Sometimes kids say the darndest things, but sometimes they can also say the cutest and sweetest things too. The little girl who loves to say No! also L-O-V-E-S her Nana. In fact, I was asking her about her new friend at her new daycare the other day. She quickly said “She’s not my best friend, though”, as if I should have already known. I wasn’t even aware she knew what a best friend was! So I surprisingly asked her “Oh, well who is your best friend then?” She responded by pointing to the person sitting next to her and saying “Nana.”