Tag Archives: children

3020. Hope for grandchildren

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Vickie and Harold had always planned to have a large family. By “large” one means by contemporary standards; perhaps four. As things turned out they had only the one child. The extroverted Mabel made up for being the only child in the family.

“There’s always grandchildren to look forward to,” declared Harold to Vickie. “Hopefully lots and lots of grandchildren!”

Soon their dream was to be fulfilled. Mabel had met Arnie. Surely a grandchild would soon be on the way!

It wasn’t to happen. “Arnie doesn’t want kids,” said Mabel. “Even though I would like to have a family Arnie says there’s so much more you can do in life if you don’t have kids.”

“Mabel needs a better chance in life than this,” said Harold. That is why he shot Arnie. Below the belt.

2897. Doreen’s birthday

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It was Doreen’s 40th birthday. She hadn’t planned anything, although she secretly planned a nice family meal. She might even bake a cake; no candles of course. She didn’t want to draw attention to her birthday in that way. Should her husband and five children get a birthday cake from the cake shop then she could leave the cake she baked in the cupboard and not say a word about it.

Doreen set the table as usual. So far no one had wished her a Happy Birthday. Perhaps they were keeping something as a surprise. Meal time approached.

Husband Peter phoned and said he’d be late. “Just put something aside and I’ll warm it up when I get home.”

Johnny scoffed his meal down and took off to a friend’s place.

Mary took her plate to her room because she was so far behind on her mathematics project she simply had to catch up.

David sat and ate his dinner without saying a word. Typical sullen teen.

Annie bolted her food down and went off to practice her guitar.

William asked forty-four times “What’s for dessert?” “Yuk!” he said. “I hate sponge cake.”

It was Doreen’s 40th birthday. She hadn’t planned anything, although she secretly planned a nice family meal.

2889. Amazing maze

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It was promoted as the most amazing maze in the history of mazes. “Bring a packed lunch if you want to make it to the exit of the maze.” “Make sure you bring some water to drink.” “This fabulous maze opens tomorrow at 9 am.” “Children aged 8 to 14 only. They will be looked after by our staff.”

At nine next morning there was quite a line waiting to get in. Groups no bigger than half a dozen were let in at ten minute intervals. Before midday an estimated two hundred plus had entered the maze.

Not a single child exited. By midday there were no children about and not a staff member to be found. The children had all been pre-sold and were being “shipped”.

2731. No pets

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Mr Claude Appleton was the teacher at a single teacher school way in the country. There were about twenty students – all daughters and sons of local farmers.

Mary was one such pupil. Like most of the pupils – in fact all of them – she didn’t greatly dislike Mr Appleton but she hated the way he made rules about everything. There were rules for playing outside, there were rules for when it rained, there were rules about every possible thing under the sun…

One of Mr Appleton’s pet hates – strange for a rural teacher – was his dislike of pets. He disliked the way the children often talked about their pets. In fact he made yet another rule about it: No talking about pets. Robin had a pet calf that was always the topic when he spoke. Angela had a pet canary. Wilfred kept ducks, which he said weren’t pets but egg-laying farm animals for his mother. Mary had a little lamb.

2700. For no rhyme or reason

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(As some of you will know, when a round number is reached in these story numberings, there is usually a departure from the norm and a flurry into the almanacs of the past).

Academics will tell you that children’s nursey rhymes have profound and often dark origins. As a child I didn’t care that “Ring a Ring a Rosy” was about the Black Plague, and “Little Jack Horner” was about the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII. I loved nursey rhymes because of the rhythm and rhyme. I guess most of us did.

But there were other rhymes that weren’t necessarily traditional nursey rhymes. Some of them were favourites and often recited.

My all-time favourite was:

One-One was a race horse.
Two-Two was one too.
One-One won one race.
Two-Two won one too.

Then there was:

Fuzzy-Wuzzy was a bear.
Fuzzy-Wuzzy had no hair.
Fuzzy-Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy wuzzy?

Then there was the one for which I always fell:

Adam and Eve and Pinch-Me-Tight
Went down to the sea to bathe.
Adam and Eve were drowned.
Who do you think was saved?

Another was recited in the school grounds but never in front of parents:

Fatty and Skinny were having a race.
Fatty blew-off in the policeman’s face.

My favourite regular nursey rhyme was:

Lucy Locket lost her pocket,
Kitty Fisher found it,
But not a penny was in sight
Except the ribbon round it.
It might’ve been you.
It might’ve been you. etc

I liked it best probably because it was associated with a game of sitting in a circle and hiding an object and chasing other people. (Incidentally, if you don’t know it, it’s sung to the same tune as “Yankee Doodle” and they think that “Lucy Locket” may have come earlier than “Yankee Doodle”!)

Perhaps you have some rhymes from childhood that you might share in the comments? They don’t have to be utterly wholesome if that’s the way they were!

2656. Oh to be six again

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(Note: This story (some will be pleased to hear) is the final politically incorrect posting for the time being!)

Dear Principal

I have included a list of the names of the boys involved. I had asked my class of six year olds to colour in a picture. It helps with the development of their co-ordination. Only one – ONLY ONE – used a black crayon. The rest coloured in the picture of a pixie with every other colour under the sun.

You will be glad to hear that I immediately sent these boys to the infirmary for castrating. The only boy not sent was Angelina Peasbody who not only used the black crayon hitherto mentioned, but requested that from now on we use the name of Angelo.

I know that in future we will both feel safer roaming the corridors of the school.

Anitx Cleanx
Teacher-of-six-year-olds

2574. A fortuitous day

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Lucy was at the end of her tether. She had three children’s mouths to feed; three children to clothe, three children to get to school. She had lost her job during the pandemic and never got it back.

Knitting wasn’t really Lucy’s thing but she pulled a pullover apart that was now too small for any of the children, wound the wool, and began to knit. In the end she had knitted three scarves and three sets of mittens. That should help the tiniest bit in winter. There was a little bit of wool left over. Little Eden had always wanted a doll. Lucy knitted a little doll’s costume around a small plastic bottle. Eden called her doll “Olivia”.

But now winter was setting in and not a dime was left in the kitty. Eden said, “If you want to, you can sell Olivia online.”

Would you believe! It went for twenty-four dollars within 10 minutes, along with the promise that Olivia’s little sister, Avery, would always answer Olivia’s letters if she wrote. It wasn’t an email or a text; it was a real letter with a stamp that would arrive in the mailbox. That was a lot more exciting! To cut a long story short, it took a lot of work but Lucy soon had thousands of people wanting dolls whose little sisters would answer letters. Lucy had five people working full time.

A famous online market wanted to take over Lucy’s enterprise and Lucy told them to jump into the lake. The same online market tried to do the same as Lucy and failed. After three years, Lucy’s dolls became unfashionable. They were put on forgotten shelves along with every Cabbage Patch doll in the world.

But it didn’t matter. Eden is now a qualified Marine Biologist and the other two children have equally successful careers. Lucy’s grandchildren often come to stay with their grandmother in her mansion.

2527. On naming the children

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Cooper and Athena Gilmour wanted a large family. Oh the excitement at being able to name the firstborn; son Bjorn Andrew.

Next came a daughter, Belinda Elizabeth, then Bruno Ivan. The Ivan was after an old great uncle who had recently died and although Athena and Cooper Gilmour didn’t like the name Ivan very much it was a middle name, and middle names didn’t really matter.

The fourth child was a third boy, Bartholomew Owen, although he was known simply as Bart. And finally there was Bethany Ursula which was a bit of a mouthful, but Cooper and Athena liked both names but not necessarily when they were put together. They couldn’t decide what to choose so both names were used.

It wasn’t until the fifth and final child had been named that Athena and Cooper Gilmour realized something: the children’s names all started with B:

Bjorn Andrew Gilmour, Belinda Elizabeth Gilmour, Bruno Ivan Gilmour, Bartholomew Owen Gilmour, and Bethany Ursula Gilmour.

It was confusing having so many B. Gilmour’s, so at school they were known by their initials:

BAG, BEG, BIG, BOG, and BUG.

2510.  Dolls

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When a hoard of little girls came to Eloise’s house to play, Eloise wouldn’t let them play with her dolls.

Eloise had more dolls than she needed, and as little Ruby said, “That’s just being selfish. I always let people play with my dolls.”

One very pretty doll caught Ruby’s attention. It was a Spanish doll; at least it looked Spanish. ”You’re not to touch it,” said Eloise. “Someone spent hours making those doll’s clothes to look Spanish.”

Rose liked the doll dressed for the cold. “You’re not to touch it,” said Eloise.

All in all, each liked a different doll – that’s how many Eloise had! – but Aria and Emily both liked best the doll with the Hawaiian skirt.

“You’re not to touch,” repeated Eloise. “Every country my husband and I visit when on vacation I buy a doll as a keepsake. Next year we’re thinking of going to Tibet.”

2398. Wool over their eyes

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Henri and Minerva were eight and nine respectively. Henri had a brilliant idea.

‘You know how those couple of wild ducks in the paddock don’t care about sheep? They waddle around the sheep without a care in the world. Whereas the minute we appear they fly off. So what if we pretended to be sheep? We could catch the ducks.”

Henri and Minerva put on large raincoats, even though it was a sunny day. They began crawling towards the ducks on all fours.

“Baa!” said Minerva.

“Baa!” answered Henri. They were certainly realistic sheep.

When they got within roughly a hundred yards from the ducks, the ducks flew off.

The experiment didn’t work.

“I have no idea,” said Minerva, “why the ducks still knew we were humans.”

Dear Reader – let me interrupt. As the narrator, interrupting a story is something I rarely do, but in this case an exception has to be made. As a hobby-scientist I feel duty bound to point out a fact: the ducks flew off not because they thought Henri and Minerva were humans. They flew off because they thought Henri and Minerva were ducks, and ducks don’t go “Baa!”