With seven children, we never have a dull moment. They are always saying or doing something to make us laugh or cry. Today, I thought I’d share a few of their sayings. I hope you enjoy.

Tommy is one of our nine-year-olds. He is a very serious little fellow. One night, he came into our living room and calmly stated that he didn’t like the girl with the snakes in her hair.

“Medusa” I questioned.

“Yeah.”

“Why?” I was curious to know what was going through his mind.

“Because I don’t want to get stoned.” He replied.

I about fell off the couch.

I keep telling people that one of these days Tommy is going to be a famous author of suspense. He’s well known to come up to someone and state, “I gotta tell you something.” After a few moments, he just turns and walks away. One of these days, he’s going to have lots to tell us.

One day he came into the house at my mom’s and told us that a cat had scratched him. When questioned about what he was doing when the cat attacked him, he stated “I was just walking my business.” Now, everyone in the family uses his unique phrase.

When he was first learning to read, he would bring his homework home and when asked to read he would look up at me and say, “I can’t read words.” He is also known for saying “I can’t know that.” when asked almost any question. Maybe he’ll grow up to be a lawyer or politician.

The kids and I made my mother stepping stones this year for Mother’s Day. Several months later, we were visiting with my mom and one of her friends, Pat. Tommy looked up at Pat and asked her if she had seen “our kidney stones”. He meant the stepping stones but since my husband had just suffered through kidney stones, he got the two confused. I think my mom was just glad that he hadn’t given her kidney stones.

Tommy, when telling us about things that happened in the past, will say “Many long days ago.” He will use this phrase if the event happened yesterday or two years ago.

We don’t eat out often, preferring to eat at home. One day I was pressed for time and decided to take them out for lunch. The kids decided that they wanted to eat at Subway. We went in and instead of ordering for them, I let them each order what they wanted. Tommy did fine until the lady asked him what kind of cheese he wanted on his sandwich. He looked at her as if she was crazy and told her very seriously, “Sliced.” I didn’t think she would get his sandwich finished because she was laughing so hard.

My mother’s home is on the side of a mountain with the woods just off the back porch. So there are usually snakes around. The kids love to run and play in the woods, like I did when I was a kid. This is usually not a big deal, the kids know how to watch out for snakes and stay away from them. But one day, Mom and I were at the kitchen table, having a cup of coffee when Bob, my five-year-old, bursts through the back door.

“What’s wrong?” Mommy mode immediately kicks in.

“Tommy got bit by a snake,” Bob looked appropriately scared.

“Where is he and what happened?” I was alarmed but I knew to get all the particulars before running off after this bunch.

“He was walking by a snake hole and it came up and bit him on the foot.” Bob never cracked a smile or hesitated in his tale. I was beginning to think that maybe he was telling the truth. About that time, a couple more of the kids came in.

“Where’s Tommy?” I asked them.

“Outside playing” was their response.

“He didn’t get bit by a snake?” I looked at Bob and could see a smile peeking out.

“No.”

“I was only joking, Mom.” Bob looked at me grinning.

He got a nice lecture on the importance of not telling tales, especially about snake bites. Since I am deathly afraid of those things, the kids always think it’s funny to scare me with them.

Now, my husband loves to tell things that people in his family have done or said. He’ll repeat phrases so often that we all know them by heart. One of his favorites is about a “turpentined cat”. Evidently someone in his family at some point had actually turpentined a cat. So he was always comparing things to a turpentined cat. One morning before school, we were sitting in the living room with Daniel, our thirteen-year old and Alyson, our eleven-year old, talking. My husband mentioned a turpentined cat and Daniel looked at him and asked what kind of cat that was. He said he’d never seen that kind.We had a good laugh as we explained to him that it wasn’t a type of cat but something that had been done to the cat.

When Alyson was three or four, I was teaching her to spell her name. We called her Ally, so I would write that down and say the letters and have her repeat them. One day, I wrote the letters and she proudly pointed to each one,. A-L-L- piece of wood, she said. Evidently she thought the Y looked like a piece of wood. We still tease her about that.

Some days they can really make you laugh with the funny things they say but some days, they can make you look at the world through different eyes. I was really stressed one day, too many things to do and not enough time to get them all finished. I had the kids in the car, driving out to the mill to pick up a check. It was a beautiful day but because of worrying about everything I wouldn’t be able to get done that day I wasn’t paying attention. A new road was being built near the mill and they had cleared off part of the mountains. As I drove around and curve and topped the mountain, Bob looked out his window and exclaimed, “I can see the whole world Mommy.” At that moment, he brought tears to my eyes. I decided not to worry about the things I wouldn’t get finished and just look at the “whole world” with Bob.

 Tommy and his “kidney stone”DanielBob- “I can see the whole world.”

Ally