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!”
Driving to a fall festival one fine Sunday afternoon, the Bare Naked Ladies’ song “Here Come the Geese” popped up on The-Five-Year-Old’s In-the-Car playlist. The Five-Year-Old must have heard that song 500 times by now, but this time, her mind had a question. “Mommyo, why do geese fly in a V-formation?”
In which The Five-Year-Old and I try to turn a stash of old buttons into ornaments for our Christmas tree.
On learning that Natick, Massachusetts has a flea market that runs from April to October on the first Sunday of every month, Daddyo naturally wanted to know: “Why is it called a flea market?”
Driving home from the Boston Public Library one day, I was evaluating the merits of the various nooks and crannies at the library as writing corners, when a small voice piped up from the back seat. “Mommyo, what’s a cranny?”
This question is far too old and my notes far too scanty to give you any reliable context for how it came up. But I can…
The worst part about vocabulary questions is how quickly they pile up. Today I answer The Five-Year-Old’s questions about how dragons and dragonflies got their name.
On a recent trip to Plymouth, The Five-Year-Old was unimpressed by Plymouth Rock. “Mommyo, is that the real Plymouth Rock? It looks real, but only realish.”
One of my daughter’s favorite episodes of Word World talks about how you can shove two words together to create a new compound word that means something entirely different. For example, “mail” and “box” merge to become “mailbox.” She immediately began applying it to all the words around us, but became stuck on the word “laundromat.” “Mommyo,” she asked. “Why isn’t a laundromat a real mat for laundry?”
Overheard when passing by The Five-Year-Old’s bedroom while storytime was in progress. The Five-Year-Old: “Daddyo, what did our ancestors grow out of?” Father: “Oh, lots of…
After learning that the Avery Oak tree had been turned into a gavel after a thunderstorm knocked it down in July 1973, The Five-Year-Old asked perplexedly:…
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