Why Isn’t That Squirrel Moving?

April 24, 2008

Suddenly Asher is waving, saying ball and mama, and eating a lot of what we’re eating. How did that happen? With these two “new” people around me all the time, I find one of the best parts is how that makes me look at life like they do. Sometimes Miles will ask “why” about the simplest thing that I had forgotten to pay attention to and really take in, and it’s like it’s new for me too because I have to think through how I’m going to answer him in simple terms.
These are the times when I think about how tiring it must be to be 2.75 years old. To be so new to everything and learning so much every day. And so much of it seems strange! Why DO people need to sleep? Why IS the stuff on trees called BARK? That’s what a dog does! I’m sure that’s why kids go through this “why” phase. If we could all remember being two, I’m pretty sure we’d understand what all the questions are about. I mean, imagine seeing someone smoke for the first time. Miles asked, “why does that woman have that pewing thing?” He only says “pew” for a shooting sound effect (I don’t know where he learned that) so I’m pretty sure he thought the young lady taking a drag was about to start using her cigarette as a weapon of some sort. Of course he would think that, it has FIRE on the end of it!
With this particular little guy, there are about a hundred questions a day. He’s known for being quite a talker and a super inquisitive guy. He has given more than one person the giggles with his non-stop excited chatter. He will hop from subject to subject like he’s on some verbal steroids, hardly waiting for an answer and moving on to the next thing he notices. It goes something like this:
“Mommy why are you doing that are those your pajamas is Asher sleeping can I draw watch out for that giant he’s going to suck you up let’s build a house with the couch can I go downstairs my uncle Kevin took me on an aventure with my doggy and I sat on a big rock…” Breathe, child, breathe!
The other day we came across a dead squirrel in the backyard. Oh boy, imagine the questions. At one point my answer was something along the lines of, “well, he just stopped being around, he isn’t living anymore.” All the while I knew that he didn’t really even fully comprehend what “living” is, so the questions continued. I do my best, but sometimes I don’t really know what to say and it can get pretty humorous. I like to be as honest as possible and put things in as simple of terms as I can. A lot of the time I just don’t have the answers. It’s a strange and wonderful thing. Never dull and always humbling. A good description of motherhood…

{ 1 comment }

kim mokosso April 25, 2008 at 9:19 am

I just read your posting to Angela and she said it reminded her of when she was in 5th grade and was babysitting some baby chickens for 2 friends for science class and accidentally killed them. She had to ask her mom, “how do chickens sleep?” Her mom replies…”standing up” and Ang knew something was wrong…she said “umm…these are on there sides.” It really made my morning, both your adorable son story and Angela “the chick killer”!

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post:

Next post: