I read somewhere once that this dad, instead of asking his kids how their day was at school, would ask them, “What questions did you ask today?!” Once I read this, I loved it. I knew that I would, at the appropriate time, start to incorporate this into our after school chit chats! However, what I wasn’t/haven’t been prepared for are questions that REALLY stump me. It isn’t that I don’t know the answer, I just don’t know how to explain it to a 4 year old. And sometimes, it’s a case of, “You know what kid? You are right!”
This is just a start. I know there are daily questions that my handsomely, witty 4 year old will continue to ask—and thank God for that!!!
These are a few of the questions that…well, I really don’t have a good answer for OR I don’t know how to really explain it in a way that he will understand:
1. Picking your nose and why we just don’t do it!
Me: K, please stop picking your nose.
K: Why?
Me: Because we use a tissue if we have boogers in our nose!
K: But why can’t I just pick it?
Me: (Mentally going through all the reasons I should give him for not doing it and nothing sounds like an honest answer. I have been known to incorporate lies into my parenting plan at times, but nothing great came to mind!) So I never answered him and just let him continue picking his nose!
2. Peeing in the bathtub
Me: K, please go potty before you get in the tub.
K: Why?
Me: Because you don’t wanna go pee pee in the bathtub. The water is supposed to get you clean, not have pee pee in it.
K: But why. The water is gonna be dirty in 2 minutes cause I played hard today (a phrase I use a lot when he comes home from school FILTHY!)
Me: (Again, no real answer for this one! He’s right. And really, is pee all that bad? He usually goes pee before he gets in the bath, but the minute he hits that warm water, he usually has to pee again anyway!)
3. Boys have a penis and girls have a vagina.
K: Mommy, she’s a girl! She has a vagina!
Me: Yes Baby, she is a girl!
K: She could have a penis?
Me: If she is a girl, then she probably doesn’t have a penis, but…
K: (cuts me off) but she could…
Me: (since this is taking place at the grocery store, several eyes are on me at this point! Talk of penis’ and vagina’s can do that!) Yes, she could, but…(and I don’t have any words to follow the but… so I leave it hanging there!)
4. Jingle Bells all year long
K: Mommy, can we listen to Jingle Bells?
Me: Baby, we only listen to that at Christmastime.
K: Why?
Me: (Still, no real answer. Why can’t we, huh?! We most certainly can. Well played son, well played! *As I turn on Jingle Bells for him!)
5. K: Mommy, why does warm water make me pee?
Me: Well, because…it just does baby. (Reality is—it relaxes our muscles, including our bladder, so it makes it difficult for us to hold it! However, he has no clue as to what a bladder is, so…basically, not worth trying to open that can of worms, right?).
6. Darth Vader
K: Mommy, why is Darth Vader a bad guy?
Me: Well, he just is.
K: But couldn’t he be a good guy? He’s Luke’s Daddy and Zurg was a bad guy and he was Buzz’s dad and he was good.
Me: This is true and you know how Darth Vader helped Luke when the mean Emperor was zapping him with the lightning?
K: Yeah, so why isn’t he just good all the time?
Me: (Speechless! How do I explain plot and characterization along with rising action, climax and resolution in addition to the fact that he is obsessed with the trilogy, so there is a resolution at the end of each of them, but then there is the ultimate resolution…. Oi vey!). I don’t know Baby.
7. Moon awake at the same time as the sun!
K: Mommy, why is the sun awake, but I can still see the moon?
Me: Well, you know how the planets circle the sun and the moon is like a big mirror that shows us how bright the sun is and…
K: But the moon is only for Mah-tah Mah-tah time (bedtime).
Me: Well, that is true most of the time.
K: And when the sun goes to Mah-tah Mah-tah then I do too and when the sun comes up then it’s time to get up.
Me: Yes that’s true.
K: So, why is the moon and the sun is up at the same time?
Me: Well… *Changing the subject—and thank goodness he is 4 and is easily distracted. I don’t know that he can fully understand fully things like the Earth’s gravity, the moo’s reflective surface, etc).
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