Animal Catastrophe

I love my job. More specifically, I love that my job involves working with children. And working with children involves hearing some pretty amazing things.

For instance...here are few snippets of recent sessions:
6 yr old girl: Oh, something very bad happened. Mrs. Smith, my teacher, her pare..t died. (Little girl says word that sounds like a cross between parent and parrot).
Me: Her parrot or her parent?
6 yr old girl: Her pare..t. (Exactly as she said it the first time, offering no help to me).
Me: A person or an animal?
6 yr old girl: An animal.
Me: Got it...keep going...
6 yr old girl: Well, my teacher, her parrot was trying to lay an egg but it got stuck and they put a warm blanket on it but couldn't find a vet and so it died. But my teacher will always be in my heart.
Me: (thinking, wait, did your teacher or the bird die and your teacher will or the bird will be in your heart, huh?) "She will? How come?"
6 yr old girl: cuz she tells me I'm smart and I know I'm smart 'cuz I can spell pretty much every word except immigration. That one I can't.
Me: You are very smart, your teacher is right.


Then today, with a 10 yr old girl who told me about all her animals who have perished and others who are still living. She didn't allow for me to talk...so I'm just providing my thoughts...
10: "I call my cat diabetic because she's so skinny."
My thought: "Do you mean anorexic?"
10: But Diabetic is girlfriend of my black cat, i know, black cat bad luck... but they are boyfriend and girlfriend. But the black cat is spayed so that won't really work out for them...and on Valentine's day she'll be so mad. But at least they can be friends.
My thought: no thoughts...just laughing

continuing...
10: and another time I accidentally almost killed my fish when I was playing and I crashed the fish tank and the water all spilled out and I saw my fish and scooped her up and ran to put her in a bottle. And she was shaken up but she lived.
Me: How did you crash the water tank?
10: Oh, I was juggling.
My thought: Of course, and why wouldn't you have been? Kind of like the time I almost missed the deadline to turn in a grad school application due to riding a unicycle in my house. (True story).

Bottom line. I love kids. I'll take 'em sad...I'll take 'em happy...I love their crazy stories and pretty much everything about them...