On an average day, my daughter’s question-to-declarative sentence ratio clocks in at a healthy 5:1. In this section of the blog, I explore what happens when instead of saying “I don’t know,” I say “Let’s find out!”
Last week, I saw this heirloom pumpkin display. My photograph told The Six-Year-Old everything she wanted to know about green pumpkins, but Daddyo’s mind had a question. “How can you tell the difference between a green pumpkin and a gourd?”
On learning that banana slugs lose and regrow over 27,000 teeth in their lifetime, The Six-Year-Old’s mind naturally had a question. “Mommyo, where do banana slugs live?”
cam·ou·flage [kam-uh-flahzh]: noun* the act, means, or result of obscuring things to deceive an enemy concealment by some means that alters or obscures the appearance a…
While passing through Pennsylvania on our recent road trip, Mommyo, pointing: “Now that’s a decrepit old barn.” The Six-Year-Old, enlightened: “Oh! So that’s what decrepit means!”…
In the process of very thoroughly cleaning out my piano, my piano tuner found this bizarrely large acorn tucked away inside. The Six-Year-Old and I have no clue what possible connection there could be between 1901 Everett uprights and 1.25″ acorns, but we are determined to find out. In the meantime, we’d like to know what kind of nut this is.
While researching Monday’s post on the history of my 1901 Everett piano, I came across an ad in which John Philip Sousa of Stars and Stripes Forever fame endorsed my piano. Now why in the world would he do that?
This week I learned that instead of dragging The Six-Year-Old to the Arnold Arboretum to hunt for endangered species on Endangered Species day, I could have simply walked her into the front room and introduced her to our very old Everett piano.
The first time I went in for my now-annual skin check, the dermatologist found three moles that looked funny. So I had them taken off. My four-year-old was fascinated by this entire process, asking me countless questions about why people should have their skin checked, what the doctor is looking for, the difference between freckles and moles, and of course, whether it’s true pale people get more moles (not necessarily).
After reading Taro Gomi’s book Everybody Poops, The then Three-Year-Old naturally wanted to know what bug poop looked like. I put her off as long as I could. The topic has been coming up again lately for reasons I don’t want to examine too closely, so I decided it was time to give her an answer.
I confess, I love visiting the Franklin Park Zoo in winter. True, the giraffes, the budgies, and the other warm-weather animals are in their winter enclosures and off-exhibit. You have to visit the farm animals in the barn, rather than in the much better ventilated outdoor petting zoo. The usually marvelous gardens contain only the dry stalks of last summer’s blooms. The carousel and other outdoor rides are dismantled. And there are no butterflies. But there are no crowds, either.
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