Somewhere in the vicinity of two and a half and three years old, a toddler comes to a momentous milestone. Gone are the days of blithely following along with conversations or a simple repartee of “What’s that?”. This new question will forever haunt your days with endless strings of queries that will lead from one topic to the next with reckless abandon. Never one to quell an inquisitive nature, you’ll forge dauntlessly forward with every good intention. And yet, as the 20th “Why, Mommy?” in as many seconds emanates from that tiny person in that little girl voice, you’ll want to scream in completely and utter frustration. You’ll find yourself curtly changing the subject, or automatically replying with a nonsense answer before your conscious mind even registers the inquiry.
I consider it a major victory that during our ride to daycare today, I was inundated with a string of at least eight whymommies before I replied with a simple “Lena…”. To which I was treated to the unexpected reply, “Me asking silly questions!” and a giggle. Progress!!
We have a few ground rules we try to follow in our house, namely:
1. A simple “why” doesn’t cut it, ask an actual question!
2. Quite frequently turn the question around on the child, let them puzzle out their own reasoning…sometimes with hilarious results! 3. Try incredibly hard not to dismiss the questions offhand, because sometimes you see the world from a whole new perspective because of a simple “Why, Mommy?”.