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It has begun.
Everything is responded to with a “Why?”
“Why are we stopping..?”
“Because the light is still red”
“Why?”
“Because it isn’t green yet….”
A bus passes us. “Why are there monkey bars in the bus?”
“So that the passengers can hang on to them (true, like monkeys would)”
“Why?”
“So that they won’t fall over when the bus moves…”
“Why?”
Daddee has no answer to this… changes subject. “Because they don’t have cars”
“Why?”
“Because they don’t have money to buy cars.” Okay that’s not entirely true, but it suffices for now.
“Why?”
Arrgghhh, she’s too young for an appreciation of how lucky we are
The why’s keep coming. To a point where when we are over at my older brother’s house for weekly dinners (meaning he’s probably an almost favourite relative of Daddee’s), he has banned Caitlin from asking why. “When you are in uncle’s house, you cannot ask ‘why’”, he said. To this, she naturally by-reflex did ask why. Uncle made a noise, she quickly caught on.
It is obviously a healthy trait to be inquisitive. At the basic level it means she interacts. She is also curious about the world around her, why things are the way they are / the way they happen.
For now I can give her simple answers; well, sometimes not. Sometimes I am tempted to respond the way Calvin’s dad responds (readers of Calvin & Hobbes will know what I am talking about) but given Caitlin’s amazing memory, snide remarks may come back & bite me in future.
How do you guys respond to such? In some ways I can’t wait to tell her “Why don’t you look it up in the encyclopedia?” But of course, that means she would have moved out of this current adorable innocent phase..
Having this toddler around is certainly giving me the run-around, not just physically.
But no, I am not complaining!
We are going through the exact same thing - have been for a couple of weeks now. The biggest problem I face in this is to answer each question with a degree of enthusiasm and not give a flippant / funny answer because I know that will only come back to haunt me.
haha….Why Why Why…
I think I used to torture my dad that way too. Perhaps that is why he came up with all kind of tall tales to tell me! And we always knew that he was pulling our leg coz he had that twinkle in hie eye…
But we still asked anyway…after all, we only wanted to talk to our dad. The answers were in-material (to a certain extent)!
But it is good yah that your lil girl is inquisitive and wants to talk to daddy!
Lil ones really bring out ALL the creativity in us!
@ Thanks Toddler Daddy; its tough to think on the fly for an appropriate answer that has little or no repercussions & that also adds value!
@ Ann, lil ones FORCES the creativity in us! I sometimes struggle to think of:
- What to do with her
- How to do them with her
- What to say to her to get her out of day-dreaming
- and of course, answers to her universal question.
Last week we were over at my brother’s for dinner as usual. At the dinner table my 16 yr-old niece was talking & said “shit”, & I told her off. It wasn’t anything hostile or anything. But Caitlin picked it up (little escapes her) but she did miss what her older cousin said.
She’s been asking me this whole week why I told off this jie jie. I had to give her the honest answer “Because jie jie said ’shit’.. “. B giving her an honest answer I effectively reminded her of the word that I didn’t want her to know / remember…
When Micah goes into that “Why?” mode his grandparents will send him back to me.
Mommy will have to tell as much as she can until she gets tired and then clips on a story (related to the subject or object) and hopes he will forget to ask “why?” after that.
Sometimes Max comes to my rescue by demanding for some attention from me, or to play with his koh-koh.