I am blessed to have bright, happy, healthy children in my home. My youngest son, Ryan is five and admittedly, much of the time, the axis that most of our daily lives seem to rotate on. He is a bright, funny, sweet, talkative. .. He drives us crazy with his constant talking. He drives us crazy with his endless questions. Each morning he awakes in full gear, questioning and chatting away.

Everyone knows that kids say some of the sweetest, funniest and sometimes embarrassing things. I have always loved hearing other parents talk about the things that their kids say. We need to write these down. It's funny how you think that you are going to remember every little line, but when you try to remember what was said you find that it has faded away into the oblivion that comes with time.

This past summer, he started a game that we called “Ryan's rules,” where he was compiling his wisdom into a series of rules, such as “rule number 22, if you ever meet a talking cactus, don't shake his hand,” and “rule number 86, If the house is on fire, don't stop to watch tv.” The game lasted for a month or so, until he found himself something else to amuse himself with ... knock, knock jokes.

I don't understand it, but there seems to be a period in every four or five year old's life, where kids, all kids love knock, knock jokes. You tell them one or two, and the next thing you know they are cranking out a lot of not so funny and non-nonsensical knock, knock jokes of their own creation.

Each time Ryan says a new one he asks, “is it funny?” If it is, I will tell him “yes,” but this just encourages him. Many times, however, in an attempt to discourage him, I'll tell him, “no.” A statement that is always followed with the dreaded “why?” question. I believe this is one of those things that drives parents the craziest.

“Why question” answers never seem to be satisfying and always followed by more of the same.

In our home “why questions” are always answered, they provide a great way for kids to absorb lots of random knowledge. I also always answer all the vocabulary questions that are thrown my way, which has provided my son with a huge range of words to pull from.

While shopping last year we came across a bike in the aisle. I mentioned to Ryan, who was four at the time, that it had a kick-stand to hold it up, to which he replied, “that's not a kick-stand, that is a stabilizer.” I'm not sure where that came from. Visiting my mother's house a month or so later, he looked up at the bamboo blinds and told her that she has a pulley system in her house. What?

The scary thing is that half of the funny, sweet and amazing things he has said, have already been forgotten. This year as part of my New Year’s resolution, I plan to do a better job of recording this period in his life. After all, who knows some of it could be used to blackmail him when he's a teenager.

This weekend, Ryan was telling me how he could take a fake sword and stab it through two bad guys at one time.

I promise, we don't encourage violence in our household.

He said “you know like a ... like a ... baba louie”

I really didn’t want to encourage the conversation anymore, but I found that I couldn't help myself. Inside I was cracking up, outwardly I was serious, knowing that I would have to follow up this conversation with another about how we don't stab people or talk about hurting people.

“You mean a shish kabob?” I asked him. After all, he had the “bob” sound right.

“That's right, a shish kabob!” He answered.

Lord, help me!