(I am three or four years old. My mother told me what to say, but I didn’t know what it means.)

Mom: “Sweetie, tell everyone, where did you get those big blue eyes?”

Me: “From the milk-man!”

(I am visiting my nephew. He is telling me about his friends.)

Nephew: “…and I have another friend who’s a ninja!”

Me: “A ninja? Can I see him?”

Nephew: “No, no-one ever sees him. Even I’ve never seen him, ’cause he’s a ninja.”

Me: “If you’ve never seen him, how do you know he’s there?”

Nephew: *shrugs* “He’s not a very good ninja…”

(My grandmother has just moved in with us, and is talking to my sister about health related things. She then begins to ask about my sister’s health.)

Grandmother: “Do you know your blood type?”

Sister: “I don’t know it off by heart, no.”

Grandmother: “You should know your blood type! What if you’re in the hospital, and they need to give you a blood confusion?!”

(My boyfriend is meeting my family for the first time, including my beloved 2-year-old niece. He is absolutely clueless when it comes to kids, which makes him uncomfortable around them. He is very physically imposing, which makes them shy around him. It’s Christmas Day, and my niece has just finished opening her presents, which include several Dora The Explorer toys and sticker books. The adults are in the kitchen talking when my niece approaches my boyfriend and pulls on his pant leg.)

Niece: “Wanna play Dora with me?”

Boyfriend: *surprised* “Well, sure.”

(He smiles and shrugs as he follows her into the living room. Fifteen minutes later, I go to grab something from my bag, I walk in on the cutest sight: My 6’6″ boyfriend sitting at a children’s tea table with Dora stickers covering his arms, shirt and face. My niece is in the act on placing one on his nose.)

Boyfriend: *straight-faced* “Apparently, this is where the stickers go.”

Me: *choking back laughter, but trying to rescue him* “Baby, don’t you want to put any of the stickers in the book?”

Niece: “No! He’s prettier now!”

Boyfriend: “Honey, honey. Come on. I’m prettier now.”

Me: “Okay, then. Carry on!”

(I ended up marrying him, and to this day, he’s still my niece’s favorite playmate!)

(I live in large household. One cousin has the tendency to write in alternate caps.)

Uncle: “Hey what’s ‘naclo’?”

Me: “Naclo? Where did you get that?”

Uncle: “[Daughter] wrote it on the shopping list. That a video game or something?”

Me: “Let me see.”

(The shopping list has ‘NaClO’ written on it.)

Me: “That looks like a chemical formula. Let me check. It’s sodium hypochlorite. In other words, bleach.”

Uncle: “Ah hah.”

(We find out it’s another aunt who needed bleach and my cousin wrote it for her so she can use alternating caps where it is perfectly normal.)