They say a child’s curiosity should be stimulated and nurtured. They say the developing mind of a child is a beautiful thing. Albert Einstein said, “The definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results”. I say…. “THEY” only observed children for the purpose of publishing a study that would make parents question their very sanity?!?
We’ve entered the never-ending land of “Why”. It starts at 6am and doesn’t end until 8, sometimes 9pm, depending on just how inquisitive Cubbie is that particular day. A typical morning may start as follows:
“Is the sun up yet? – Cub
(me, barely conscience and mumbling through this entire interchange)
“No, go back to sleep”
“Why?”
“Because if the sun’s not up, neither are we”
“Why?”
“Because we need our sleep”
“Why?”
“Because I’m tired”
“Why?”
“Because you wake me up too early”
“Why?”
“I don’t know… can you please just lay down…”
“Why?”
***Silence***
“Why?”
***Silence***
“Um, hey Mom”
***Silence***
“Mom”
“What Cubbie”…
About 4 mili-seconds from that moment he will come at me from a different angle, with a new line of questioning, and generally about 15 minutes after that I will concede losing the battle to stay in bed.
Today, our day ended reading a 5 page card board book, with likely less than 20 words in the entire book. It took us the better part of 10 minutes to read that one book. It went something like this:
“Paul the police car drove down Main Street” – Kev… page 1…
“Where’s he going?”
“Down Main Street”
“Why”
“Because that’s his job”
“What are those people doing”
“They are standing on the side-walk”
“Why”
“Because they’re watching Paul drive by”
“Why is that lady waving”
“Because she wanted to say hi”
“Why’s that boy wearing a red shirt”….
And so it went, page after page after page….
Sometimes we get the very same question 19 times in a row, and despite answering the same, answering different, ignoring, going with the stand by that you swore you’d never say “Because I said so”… it never ends, the results never change, and slowly, question by question, our sanity is chipped away.
I try to bolster my patience by reminding myself that all these questions will result in my child undoubtedly being a genius… But then I listen to some of the answers I give him…. and I know better. My kid will be the one in first grade defiantly upholding his claim that the sky is in fact purple, because his mom said so, at which point I will have to come clean that after trying to convince him it was blue the first 20 times, I got bored and made something else up.
They say, at some point all parents will lie to their children…. THEY are right!