Friday, July 30, 2010

Questions, Questions, Why, Why, seriously, Why?

I wish my daughter would ask me why the sky is blue, because I feel like I could answer that. I know I know, questions are a sign of learning, but when the toast is burning, my two year old is crying, and the dog just dropped a turd in every room in the house to punish me for forgetting to walk him, I can't handle the inevitable and impossible "Why is it Tuesday?" from my four year old. "Because it is." I reply in a tone that I should never use with anybody, let alone my precious and sensitive daughter. To which she replies,(in a twist of bitter irony, because I say this to her)"Because isn't an answer Daddy." This situation is a hard one to describe to someone who hasn't experienced it before. I can't think of a more humbling experience, because I do all the wrong things and know they are all the wrong things as I do them. As I am yelling "What do you want?" to my crying two year old, I can almost see myself as the horrible person she sees, and then I tell my four year old "I can't handle all the questions, who cares why it is Tuesday?". Both are now crying while I mumble things like, "Why in the heck can't the stupid dog just poop in one pile like other dogs" And I know in that moment that if the dog were dumb enough to come out of hiding, that I would show my impressionable daughters the absolute wrong way to discipline a dog who makes you clean six different turds all over the house.

Lets not forget the black toast smoking in the toaster oven. "Why is the toast black daddy?"
Here is what I should have said: "Remember what we learned about how heat changes things? Some things get softer when we heat them and others get harder. Bread gets harder and if you leave it on the heat too long, it burns and turns black."

Here is what I actually said:"I burned it."

"Why did you burn the toast daddy?", "Why do we eat toast?", "Does grandma eat toast?", "Why doesn't grandma like toast?", "Why is your face red daddy?", "Why do dogs go potty outside?", "Why do dogs poop?", "Why are you spraying that on the carpet?", "Why does it smell funny?, "Why can't we touch it?", "What does toxic mean?"

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