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!”
After presenting me with a Victorian necklace crafted of the finest rainbow-splattered duct tape and yellow construction paper, The Five-Year-Old was naturally concerned about the authenticity of her work. “Mommyo, did Victorians use duct tape?” I was pretty sure duct tape was invented after the world had said goodbye to Queen Victoria, but I had to look the exact date up.
Several months ago, The Five-Year-Old and I were reading Stephen and Lucy Hawking’s children’s book George’s Secret Key to the Universe when we came across a picture of Dr. Reaper wearing an older style gas mask. When I mentioned how old-fashioned that gas mask was, The Five-Year-Old immediately wanted to know, “Mommyo, what does a new-fashioned gas mask look like?”
The Five-Year-Old, pointing to clouds streaking across the sky on a recent trip to downtown Boston: “Daddyo, how is that even possible?”
It’s been nearly a week since I answered any of my daughter’s questions, and boy are they piling up. Today, I answer several quick ones about worms, hedgehogs, and how many shots my daughter would need to visit hedgehogs in their native habitat.
Oddly, when you type this question into Google, you get lots and lots of links pointing you to bacteria that are smaller than other bacteria. Almost…
One day in early February, my five-year-old daughter called me with an urgent question. “Mommyo! Weddings! How long have those things been invented.” Turns out people have been getting married pretty much as long as there have been people around to get married to.
Sometime last year, The Five-Year-Old discovered the highly informative children’s book series “The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That.” The books relay all…
Last week, while shopping for staples in our local grocery store, we passed the unavoidable Easter candy aisle. The Four-Year-Old immediately snagged a huge chocolate bunny wrapped in gold foil. After gnawing her way through the wonderfully solid chocolate ears, The Four-Year-Old exclaimed in some surprise: “Mommyo! The head’s hollow! How do they do that?”
Our cat Mulberry was an exceptional mouser. As far as I know, though, she never actually ate any of the mice she ate. But on learning that owls eat the bones along with the rest of the mice, my daughter naturally wondered if cats ate mouse bones too.
Recently, The Four-Year-Old learned that the Auburn University football team has multiple fighting beasts associated with it. Naturally she wanted to know the difference between Aubie the tiger and Nova the War Eagle.
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