Kids say the funniest things: Keep a 'What they said' book

Tucked away at the end of a shelf in a corner of my kitchen are two battered, tea-splattered, hardback notebooks. You wouldn't even notice them. But if my house was on fire, they would be one of the things I would try and rescue.

They are my son's and daughter's 'WHAT [insert name of child] SAID' books: Inside are recorded the funniest/strangest/most adorable things they have said over the years from when they first started to speak. 

The books have sat here through the years ready to grab and write in every time a wonderful, precious soundbite came out of their mouths. Or just when they got a word deliciously wrong. 

I mean there’s no way I would remember otherwise that my daughter used to call meringue "marangatang" or that my son said he had "fizzery feet" when he got pins and needles. Next to each utterance I have recorded the age they said it, down to the nearest fraction.

As time goes by, these books just get more and more precious. The kids love to look back at the funny things they said when they were little once in a while too. And although The Teenager's book doesn't get added to anymore, my daughter, just turned nine, still comes out with the occasional gem.

Here are five of my favourite quotes from each of their books.

What The Big One said ...

After he'd been to a friend's birthday party: 

“I had ham and potatoes and cake and a treacley tart thing but I didn’t really enjoy it because the smell of dog had melted into the food.”  (4 ¾)

Feeling poorly with a tummy bug: 
“Poos and burps, that’s what’ll help me get better.”  (5 ¼ )

He’s been out with daddy for the day. I ask him what he had for lunch.

“Bikini and chips.” [= panini and chips]  (5 ½)

The day we bought a DVD player for the first time:

“I can’t believe it’ll be ours forever!”  (5 ¾)

“I was telling my friend Jack about daddy’s operation.” I ask him which operation he means. He replies: 

“The one on his tentacles.” [referring to my husband's vasectomy!]  (7¼)

What The Little One said ...

I am getting her dressed and I accidentally put both her legs in the same trouser leg. Trying to alert me to the situation, she shouts out desperately: 
“Help, help! I’m a mermaid, I’m a mermaid!”  (2 ½)

She climbs onto daddy’s lap and says to him:

“I think it’s time you knew how babies are made."  (3 ¼)

"When I’m a big girl, can I have a betweeny?" [= a bikini]  (3 ½)

She asks me when she is going to start school. I tell her it's September. She thinks for a while and then says: 
"Ooh, I go the school when the blackberries grow!"  (almost 4). 

"Mummy, where did you get that top? You look like Cinderella ... in scene one!"  (7 ½) 
(To see how my daughter would like me to dress, look what happened when I took her shopping and let her choose me a whole outfit!) 

That second to last one I liked so much I turned it into a painting, to capture that special time in her life.

Now I am off on a trip with my naughty little sister to celebrate a Very Big Birthday I recently had. Back in a couple of weeks ...