I love when my kids use the wrong word or a cute mispronunciation. Maybe it’s bad, but I don’t correct them. I know they’ll learn the proper version as they grow and I want to hang on to that adorable piece of childhood as long as I can.

When my daughter Violet, 5, was about 2 years old, she said “tpuz” for because. “Tpuz I’m Violet” was her catchphrase for quite a while.

“I don’t want to take a bath, tpuz I’m Violet,” she said in an angry tone one night at bath time. Then about 10 minutes later, in an “I know I’m adorable tone,” she said, “I want to get in (the bathtub), tpuz I’m Violet.”

This winter, we had an appointment at the hospital that ran close to lunchtime, so we stayed and had lunch at the cafeteria. My daughter Eleanor, 3, is a busy toddler, always climbing things, jumping and just can’t sit still for too long. She also has an aversion to wearing shoes.

I was busy getting the kids’ lunches set up for them and, when I finally sat down to eat, I noticed Eleanor’s shoes were in the middle of the walkway between the booths and tables.

My son, Dawson, 9, asked Eleanor, “How did you do that without us even noticing.”

“I did it easy peasy wizard squeezy,” Eleanor said with pride.

Instead of “yesterday,” Eleanor says “lasterday,” which I think makes perfect sense.

At 6 years old, Dawson asked me if I saved his extension cord (umbilical cord) and if it still has power.

Dawson was showing my husband, Terry, some new things he discovered on the “Angry Birds” video game. Terry asked him how he knows so much.

“I have personal appearance,” he said.

Dawson used to say “Nudie York” for New York, and a suitcase was a “soup case.”

When her grandson, Joey, was about 5, Louise Knutsen of Bainbridge Island brought him along to the vet’s office to pick up her dog. It took a little longer than she expected and Joey got restless. Louise always carried a tin of Altoids in her purse, so she pulled it out and handed it to him to “take only two.”

Joey took the tin to the receptionist and offered her one.

“Oh, no thank you, honey,” she said.

“They’re very good,” he said. “They’re hemorrhoids.”

The receptionist immediately stood up and began to do some filing with her back turned to them. Louise was skimming through a magazine and suddenly had to put it in front of her face.

Rosalie and Barry Fisher, of St. Joseph, Illinois, were talking to their grandson Camden, 5, about kindergarten. They told him how exciting it is that he will go to kindergarten in the fall and how much he will learn. His parents had been talking to him about how he would learn to read, but Camden was not too interested.

Camden then informed his grandparents that he is not going to regular kindergarten in the fall. He is planning to go to “recess kindergarten.”

“He’s a pretty curious boy and can tell you some fascinating facts, about insects for example, but reading doesn’t seem to interest him as much as the recess part,” Rosalie said.

Shauna Banning of Bellevue writes that her son Kingston, 9, used to call Papa John’s Pizza Papa Jones’ Pizza.

Jennifer Tuschman lives in Cooper City, Florida. Her son Sam, 21, said “backcack” for backpack well into first grade. Her daughter Abbie, 15, said “restranaut,” which is restaurant plus astronaut, until the middle of kindergarten.

“(It) kills me when they start pronouncing everything correctly,” Tuschman said. “It’s like you can feel childhood slipping away.”

I would love to hear your funny kid stories, so please send them my way. Parents, teachers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and people who love children, please send your stories and cute kid photos to quinn@ward.media. I look forward to hearing from you.

— Quinn Ward is a former journalist living in Poulsbo. She has been recording the amazing and outrageous things her kids say since they have been able to talk.