My Balance is Green. Isn’t Yours?

January 24, 2010 at 2:07 pm | Posted in Lollipop | 6 Comments

We’ve entered tricky territory at our house: the question phase. Lollipop has questions about everything. And she asks them all day. Over and over. And then again the next day. I tell myself she’s practicing to be an engineer. Or a journalist. Or a third-rate attorney, the ones who advertise on TV during Law and Order in the middle of the night. Oh, wait, no, not that.

What Goes Around
I have laughed with friends as they shared their own “Why? Why? Why?” stories. Then I laughed harder in the car on the way home because we seemed to have escaped that particular form of toddler torture. And, now, here we are. Bad Mommy Karma. It’s coming around.

But Lollipop prefers “what” questions. “What is a joke?” “What makes the weather cold?” “What is my brain for?” She even asks questions she knows the answer to already. This has me wondering, does she want a different answer than the one she is anticipating? Just to see, just to test, just to make sure the sky is not falling?

Survey Says …
I remind myself to be patient. I answer as best I can. I say “I don’t know” when, well, I don’t know. But to preserve my precious sanity, I occasionally do give her an off-the-wall answer. Just to see if the sky falls. Here are some of my favorite recent exchanges:

L: “Mom, what is balance?”
Me: “Balance is what you have inside of you to keep you from falling down all the time.”
L: “What color is balance?”
Me: “I’m not sure. What color do you think it is?”
L: “Green. Mine is green. And my brain is black and my heart is red.”

L: “Mom, what color princess dress does Giggles want to wear today?”
Me: “I’m not sure if he wants to wear a princess dress today.”
L: “He wants to wear the purple one.”
Me: “Oh, how do you know that?”
L: “It’s short like he is. Then he won’t trip in his princess shoes.”

L: “Mom, what’s spare grass [asparagus]?”
Me: “It’s the vegetable you helped me cut up for dinner.”
L: “Is it green?”
Me: “No, I think it’s purple.”
L: “No, Mommy, it’s green.”
Me: “Oh, I think you’re right.”
L: “It’s green like lettuce … Can we take it back to the store?”

L: “Mom, what are you and Giggles going to do today while I’m at school?”
Me: “We’ll probably go to the grocery store.”
L: “What grocery store? Target?”
Me: “No, just the regular grocery store.”
L: “I need you to go to Target.”
Me: “Why?”
L: “Target doesn’t give balloons to boys and girls like the grocery store does. Giggles doesn’t get a balloon today.”

L: “Mom, what do bees eat?”
Me: “Bees eat nectar. It’s like juice in the middle of a flower.”
L: “I think they like orange juice.”
Me: “Well, maybe they get orange nectar from orange flowers.”
L: “Can I have some orange ‘connector’ for snack?”