It happens in most families, I’m sure: When my kids rub their noses on mine, they shout, “Eskimo kiss!” When they tickle me with their eyelashes, they shout, “Butterfly kiss!” When they suck their cheeks in and move their lips up and down, they shout, “Fish kiss!”
But unlike in most families– and owing to the strange imagination of my 7-year old– when my kids poke their pointer fingers on the outside corners of my mouth, they shout, “Pickle kiss!”
Ahem.
When playing "monster" goes south.
It happens in most families, I’m sure: The kids say something with a double meaning that goes right over their own heads, and the parents exchange covert looks and quiet laughs. But maybe because of the sheer number of our children– or maybe because of their mother’s particularly keen ear for the inappropriate– this happens in our family with great frequency. It’s fantastic.
I’m not into mean humor; I find slapstick tiresome; toilet humor is too gross. But give me awkward or inappropriate, and I’m all over it.
So it’s a terrible dilemma, hearing such perfect double entendres all the time and not being able to add an “if you know what I mean” or even a little “ahem.” Ugh, parenting. They warn you about tantrums and potty training and backtalk; they entirely fail to prepare you for the disappointment of not being able to “that’s what she said” your own kid. And mine come up with such good material.
Carrying spherical toys: “I have balls!”
Inflating a balloon: “Are you a good blower?”
Putting up a fight about getting changed: “Take off your pants!’
Determining my ability to roll my Rs: “Are you good at moving your tongue?”
Objecting to being plopped down: “Don’t bang me on the floor!”
But the joy of pickle kisses is that because the kids think nothing of the name, I’m quite free to appropriate them as inappropriately as I want. So naturally I give them to my husband a lot. All over the house. Sometimes when he least expects it. And of course there’s all the shouting that goes with them.
***
I dreamed the other night that I saw a friend I haven’t seen in a while and gave him a much too long, much too amorous hug. When I woke, I told Bryan about my amusing dream, and he joked that he’d keep a close eye on us the next time we saw this friend.
“Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to be giving him any lingering hugs. That’d be a little awkward,” I said, picturing the shock on my decidedly non-tactile friend’s face.
“Well,” he allowed, “just don’t give him a pickle kiss.”
_______________________________________________________
What funny things have your kids said lately?
What kind of humor gets you going?
And for a little extra awkwardness: I double-dare you to give someone a pickle kiss today and then tell me all about it in the comments. (Don’t forget the shout!) 
Ha!
I’m another one who loves the inappropriate jokes. Most of mine show up when I’m hanging out with the band, setting up for a show. Then it’s kind of a never-ending barrage of “TWSS” jokes.
“Which end do I stick this in?”
“Is that nut screwed all the way?”
“We’re outta’ holes!”
Granted, we could probably say these things in a more (less?) adult fashion, but where’s the fun in that?
Oh man. I would love to play with you guys someday. IYKWIM
I completely missed the inappropriateness of “pickle kiss.” Somehow, I had never connected a pickle to ‘that’ pickle. Or rather, calling it a pickle. Maybe I should stop now. Or I could end up in a pickle.
Still funny, though. Double entendres get me through life. Especially teaching first graders. To read their phonetic spelling writing where b’s and d’s get reversed…let’s just say it’s an education all to itself.
Little kid writing is the best. You should send in some samples to Leanne and Chase at http://www.stuffkidswrite.com!
Oh, that pickle! (You weren’t alone in watching that one fly overhead, Kara.)
Thanks, too, for finally telling me what “Butterfly Kisses” are. As a child-free guy, I never got them from a source equivalent to Bob Carlisle’s, so I never really could figure out what was going on in that song.
I was actually one of the kids who heard something from his parents, repeated it, and found out years later how inappropriate it really was. I never knew the details behind “bass-ackwards,” for example.
Oops. That may very well be what happens to my kids. :-/
Every time Kai plays with his Legos he builds a tower. Invariably, the tower falls. He then says with great frustration in his voice, “I just can’t get it up.”
This Christmas was the first time he started putting words in with Christmas carols instead of just nonsensical phrases. Personally, I loved how…at church…he sang VERY loudly the phrase “‘What the hell’ the angels sing. Glory to the newborn king.”
Every so often, he’ll just pull up his shirt and say “These are my boobs.”
NO clue where he gets all this stuff from…
I love that kid. “What the hell,” the angels sing. Ahahahaha!
On a family walk through the woods yesterday, my 4 year old turned around and shouted proudly: “mommy, muck rhymes with f**k!” when asked where she heard that (through the strain of trying not to wet myself laughing) she said she made it up. She was so proud.
that is beautiful!
I’d be proud too. That’s a great word.
Definitely never heard of the pickle kiss. Laughing at what kids say is one of my favorite pastimes, though! =)
Well, my family and I are here to help.
You really know how to wake me up in the morning. #iykwim
Thanks for the laugh!
It’s my pleasure to get you going. IYKWIM
“Say no more, say no more. A wink’s as good as a nudge, eh?”
Eli doesn’t really talk enough yet… but I seriously can’t wait. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to contain my gutter-minded laughter. He does, however, like to knock things over using a good pelvic thrust. Block tower? Thrusts it to the ground. Sand castle? Thrusts it over. I die laughing every time.
Hilarious! Look, Mom, no hands!
You all gave me a great laugh today. Thanks!
I blame it on your grandchildren.
Too funny! Kids are the greatest source for entertainment!
I love when kids have no idea what they’re saying, like mind the other day. My sons were having a light saber battle when one of them decided to use a particular word repeatedly for a sound effect. As they ran through the house, I couldn’t help but laugh at the repeated yells of “Douche! Douche! Douche!”
Awesome.
Haha!! Our kids are going to a Gaelic speaking school. Here in Ireland they call an eraser a rubber. And the Gaelic word for prize is pronounced “douche”. Hubs nearly ran off the road one day when our then 6 yr old said, “daddy! Daddy! I got a rubber in my douche at school today!!”
You’re welcome.
I enjoy a nice crunchy pickle from time to time.
Indeed.
Come for dinner at our house most nights – the what you would like to think as the simple act of family mealtime quickly runs amok with double entendres and lots of “that’s what she said” – the fun of having older teenagers who get the entendres in the first place. My wife has finally given up all hope for us I think. We now measure a sucessful meal by if everyone is laughing so hard they have tears instead of if all the plates are clean!
Sounds like a perfect system of measurement to me!
Twss.
That’s just awesome.
That. Is. Hysterical! I have a girl and two boys and the boys are by far more inappropriate without being aware of it. I was washing dishes at the sink one afternoon (so June Cleaver of me) and my 3 yr old came and stood right beside me and said, “LOOK MOMMY!” with exaggerated enthusiasm. I turned to look and he had his hands on his hips and just the front part of his pants down, cupping (if you will) his…well…um…package (for lack of a better word). He said, “Look how BIG I am!” What does one say to that?! My response, “Congratulations, darling, you must be very proud!”
There are SO many moments with my boys that I have to laugh. Like when they bring two balls that are the same color and say, “Look mom! I have two blue balls!”
Hee, hee. What can ya do?!
I’m just glad to know that I’m not the only one
“You must be very proud.” Too funny!
Our daughter used to call our dog, Angus, “Anus” (it was a sad day when she figured out how to pronounce the g) and she thinks taste-buds are called “taste-butts”. I refuse to correct her.
It’s so sad when they start using correct pronunciation!
Loved this one. for me its not with the kids, it was with my parents.
A few years ago my brother and I were back home visiting mom and dad. Our parents would watch Jay Leno, the night we were there was a headlines night where Jay would show funny headlines. The one that my Bro Nate and I will remember was when Jay said im just going to show you this one. it was a paper ad for humming birds with the title ” nothing beats a hummer in the morning” Nate & I laughed and my parents did not get it. they asked us what, We laughed harder…. Not sure if you will post this one, but hope you get the laugh we did ( its not fun explaining this to your mother at any age )
Thanks for the laugh Rock On
Tim
Nothing beats a hummer in the morning. Except maybe a pickle kiss.
As my son would once said on a spring walk, “Look at all those twigs and berries! I could eat them right now.”
These days, when he’s fencing, I’m just pray his “twigs and berries” don’t get skewered.
“I could eat them right now.” Hahahaha! What an appetite.
So my 10yo son get a NERF gun for Christmas and instead of saying something like “load” or “arm” when preparing for battle he settled on the word “cock”. While a perfectly acceptable word for describing the action of readying the NERF gun to be fired (at me) he kept saying it so frequently that I had to put a stop to it and explain it’s other meaning (don’t want the 4yo daughter running around the house saying “cock” now do we?).
I’m dying!
similar story for us this Christmas. Hanging out with family, my youngest son and two nieces were playing on the porch swing, and the “crazy redneck” uncle from Arkansas asks “are you gonna schwang?”, but they apparently understood it to as “do you got schwang?”.
Naturally, the 6 and 8 year girls and my son are going back and forth with each other and with anyone that would listen with “do you got schwang?!?!” like it’s a personality trait or something, and I’m just shaking my head. Finally I asked my son to drop it, told him it sounds a little too close to a couple variations on words friends of mine put to music in college (ie, sounds like “does your schwang hang low, can you tie swing it to and fro…etc.”)
Big dill…
There really is nothing better than trying to slip a double entendre past my wife–now I’m paranoid that “slipping” sounds dirty. I love that moment when she’s like, “What did you just say?” It’s going to be tough to resist cracking up when we have kids saying crazy stuff like this.
Now that you mention it, it does sound dirty when you slip a “big dill” in there.
Hilarious… Yeah I guess it would be bad if you were to start responding in this way and your kids started going around quoting Michael Scott.
I don’t have kids yet, but I recently filmed some interviews at church of what our kids thought about Christmas, and their were definitely some moments where I wanted to throw out a “that’s what she said,” unfortunately that wouldn’t have been a good career move. :/
And to your challenge… actually I’m going to avoid pickle kisses at all costs, if that’s alright.
Alright, but you’re missing out.
My 2 year old niece calls blueberries “Boobies!” and will often exclaim, “Oh, I just LOVE boobies!”
Hahaha! So cute!
Reading these comments was as amusing as the post (I, too, was a bit lost on the reference to *that* pickle; I’ll have to try it out sometime, IYKWIM.).
When my younger daughter was first born, my older daughter (then 18 mos.–I know, feel sorry for me, please) asked what I was doing when I was nursing. I explained. Whenever it was feeding time, and because her sister would get so excited to nurse, my older daughter ran through the house shouting, “I love boobies!”
I applaud my child for saying it out loud.
At least she didn’t try to get in on the action (or did she?).
She did not try to get in on the action, which surprised (and relieved) me.
My son had a hard time pronouncing “tr-” when he was two, and his version of “fire truck” got a quick reaction from the church ladies on more than one occasion.
That same son also liked to run around ‘gol-legged’ after the bath and we’d say “watch out for them bare buns!” One time (at 2 or 3 yrs old), he was ducking behind the couch and basically doing peek-a-boo with his bare buns….”now you see them… now you don’t” He comes out from behind the couch, runs backwards towards us saying “here they coooooomeee!”
I had a friend whose son pronounced it the way your son did, and I hoped my twins would do the same. They didn’t, but they did end up pronouncing “dump truck” as “dumb cock.” So I was happy.
you do realized you’re warped, right?
Scary thing is, we apparently all like you that way!
Man, now I can’t wait for the stage of life with kids. Thanks guys, you’re helping me embrace growing up
It’s quite the ride.
Pickle kiss. You have to know how much much I love that.
I knew you’d get excited.
#TWSS
It’s fitting that I get to you right after Chase. He wrote that guest post for me about “That’s what she said” and it turned into a fun month of banter around the interwebs. I also get what you’re saying about comedies. Just had this talk with a friend. I’m not into raunch comedy or anything that’s nothing but shock. Gotta be clever and I’m all over it too.
I never read Chase’s guest post because it was going to be a spoiler for me. Now that I’ve finished that season of The Office, I should get on it.
TWSS
I wish my 5th grade son’s teacher had not assigned them such a long reading passage about Uranus. It took far longer to read because of the giggling (his AND mine).
Teacher fail: I told my 7th grade student who was messing with another teacher’s PE equipment, “Don’t touch other people’s balls!”
the worst part is that I laugh. I can’t help it. That probably makes me a questionable parent/teacher. Sigh.
Ahahahahaha! That makes you my favorite kind of parent/teacher.
My friends are British, so I think maybe this doesn’t blare at their ears like it does mine: Their daughters love to read this one book out loud, that’s about a dog named Seaman. The pronunciation stress is always on “sea,” with none on “man,” them being British and all. Trying not to laugh, well…that quickly gets too hard.
That’s fantastic. How does that not sound like a homophone to them?! Someone British needs to come explain this to me before I have to risk Google searching “British seaman semen.”
Plus you just talked about Seaman and ended your dialogue with the line “that quickly gets too hard.”
well, when my oldest was 3 or 4, he was driving in my mom’s car and he yelled, “look grandma, it’s a hooker!”. you know…a hooker…like what hangs on the back of a tow truck!
yeah – totally good for a LOT of laughs!
Love it!
Being completely inappropriate, we actually do say “if you know what I mean”, and “that’s what she said” around out grandchildren and the 5 year old picked up on it and started saying it without a clue what it meant but after some totally hilarious and appropriately inappropriate remarks – had us all rolling on the floor. Unfortunately, he’s a pretty smart cookie and he’s starting to catch on. That’ll go over big at his private Christian school’s kindergarten class I’m sure. Oh well, they had to put up with it from my kids, why not my grandkids? ;P
Uh-oh! Hope his teacher has a good sense of humor.
Just a super laugh!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Out of nervousness, sometimes I will say something thoroughly inappropriate. Most of the time, my preteen daughter doesn’t understand it, thank goodness. But sometimes she will. The other day, we met a well-known British band. One of the singers is famously vegetarian (or “veggie” as he says). I asked him how he liked the food choices in Los Angeles (where we are). He said, “I’m finding lots of good food. I’m a veggie, so it’s hard sometimes.” Well, I blurted out, “Oh, that’s good. I love to eat veggies.” As he held in a giggle, I turned a bright shade of red, and my daughter just rolled her eyes and walked away. So embarrassing.
Ahahahaha! Awesome.
I’m a teacher. One of the joys of my job is occasionally hearing young students say something inappropriate, totally innocently. There is one such an occasion that stands out though.
We happened to be diagramming and were taking a test. A student made a note on the test, to me, explaining a problem she ran into. What she meant to tell me was that she couldn’t remember how to diagram a compound subject. But what she wrote was this:
“I don’t know how to do it with more than one person.”
Cracks me up to this day.
Takes me back to college…
I loved diagramming sentences.
It’s so good to know that I’m not the only one whose mind is in the gutter
This is probably the first blog post ever where I have actually read ALL of the comments, word for word. 
Unfortunately, I can’t contribute my own experiences as I don’t have kids, but now I’m looking forward to it.
The comments have been keeping me rolling– love it!
I read your post and laughed. Then I read all the comments and laughed some more. I know my three girls have said all sorts of things that have cracked us up, but of course none of them come to mind except one. When I nursed my youngest my husband thought he was so funny everytime she was hungry to say she needed some “booby juice”. Of course her sisters picked it up and loudly announced in church one day when the baby was fussy. “Quick mom give her some of that booby juice!” Hubby thought it was hilarious, I almost crawled under the pew:)
Ha! Great comedic timing.
Reminds me of a joke my son made up when he was about 4. (This pickle conversation changes the whole meaning of it now!)
What do you get when you cross a pickle with a duck?
A daffy-dilly.
Hahahaha!
giggled like a school girl when I read this, you said….heh heh heh, like beavis and butthead gone bad. great way to start my day with immaturity on my part, guess I should wake up the kids now.
I dreamed I was spiderman so don’t fret about your hug…
Glad you got a kick out of it! Maturity is overrated.
When he was around 3, our nephew had a set of those Chinese meditation balls, which he called his “special balls.” THAT in and of itself for good for hours of laughs: “Look Auntie Seza! I can hold both my special balls in one hand!” But when the chimes inside one broke, it just went downhill. One of the best was, “My special balls just don’t jingle-jangle like they used to.”
So funny.
My sister-in-law is a school principal. One of her teachers once had the class read a book out loud in class about a little boy that was abused by his father. It was very unfortunate that the teacher did not pre-read the book and the author decided to name the little boy Peter. There were many references to “he beat poor Peter” and once “he beat Peter ‘til he was black and blue”. The class was in an uproar and the teacher was mortified. Needless to say, she pre-reads her materials now!
Another one…when I was teaching preschool, we read the book “Goodnight Gorilla.” After I read the book, the kids had free read time. One of the kids grabbed the book and started “reading” it to a classmate. I walked by just in time to hear him enthusiastically say, “Goodnight, Gonorrhea!” I had to leave the room.
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“maybe because of their mother’s particularly keen ear for the inappropriate” — funny!
My 5 year old co-opts her 7 yr old brother’s favorite phrases. Right now he’s on “literally”. She says “clitorally”.