“Why do I have to be clean?”
Preschooler, on bath night: “Why do I have to be clean?” Mother: “To stay healthy.” Preschooler: “Why?” Mother, hoping to move things along to a place…
“Why do pale people get more moles?” (Caterpickles consults the dermatologist)
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).
“Could a T. Rex lift a woolly mammoth?”
When my daughter first asked me if a T. Rex could lift a woolly mammoth, the answer seemed obvious: No. They lived in two completely different time periods. But what if time were no obstacle?
“What is a dormouse, and how did it get its name?”
Last night during storytime, my daughter listened patiently to an entire page of Under the Harvest Moon by Stella Gurney before interrupting my husband with a question. “What’s a dormouse, and how did it get its name?”
“How long will it take for my wishbone to fossilize?”
A week or two ago there was a heated scene in our kitchen between my daughter and her father regarding the future of a rather extraordinary (in my daughter’s opinion) wishbone extracted from a rather ordinary (in her father’s opinion) rotisserie chicken. My daughter wanted to add the wishbone to her collection. My husband objected. “Bones have no place in this house. Unless they are fossils.” Wait for it… “Daddyo, how long will it take for my wishbone to fossilize?”
Questions That Are Better Than Their Answers
Every once in a while my daughter asks a question that is much more interesting than its answer. But while the answers to these questions are…
“What’s the wishbone for, Mommyo?”
One evening while pulling the meat from a rotisserie chicken to make tortilla soup, I discovered the bird’s wishbone and decided to use it as a Teachable Moment. When I presented the wishbone to my daughter, she asked, “What’s a wishbone for, Mommyo?” To which I replied, “Well you hold this end and I hold that end, and we pull to see who gets to make a wish.” “No, Mommyo. What’s a wishbone really for?”
“Do bees have two pairs of wings?”
“Do bees have two pairs of wings?”
Picky picky
In which my daughter makes effective use of literalism and a long pause.
What to do on your 43rd visit to the Boston Museum of Science
OK, so maybe we haven’t really been to the Boston Museum of Science 43 times this year, but sometimes it sure can feel like it. So where do you go when your preschooler has memorized the dinosaur exhibit, categorized the complete contents of the midden heap, swarmed the Butterfly Garden, grown tired of the Apollo and Mercury space capsules, eked every last bit of joy out of the orbiting marbles in Mathematica, and despaired of the chaos in Science in the Park?
CATERPICKLES 