Why?

Are we ever in the why stage! I should count, but I'd be willing to bet she asks "why?" 200 times a day. While I understand it's a stage and it's normal and it'll pass and blah, blah, blah, I'll also admit that it is exhausting. She will absolutely disect an event- why did he open his eyes, why did he close his eyes, why did he open his mouth, why did he show his teeth, why was he standing, why did he sit down, why did he make that microscopic movement to the left when the sun was shining over his right shoulder during the last leap year? The only time I've ever been so profoundly at a loss for answers was when she was a newborn! I must say the words "I don't know" for at least 100 of those questions each day. Sometimes the questions are just so out there that there simply isn't an answer- why is that the ground, why is that a rock, that kind of thing. Then there are the ones that are kind of fun because you get to see her learning something- do planes flap their wings, how can helicopters fly when they don't have wings, why is the sun hot, why to animals on movies use their front feet for hands when real animals don't do that?

We really do try not to say "Stop asking why!" because we do want her to ask why, and also, really, the reply would just be "why?" So there are a lot of "that's just the way it is" answers. So many, in fact, that if I try to pre-empt some of the questions by asking them of her, she'll say "It just is!" regardless of the whether that makes sense or not.

We played outside for a while today. We got her some snowshoes this year. She put them on a few weeks ago, then promptly fell down. Of course, that association stuck and she has steadfastly refused to put the on. The snow is now deep enough that walking around on it really is easier with snowshoes on. No amount of asking and pointing out that she was falling down without the snowshoes on was going to persuade her to put those things on today until I said that we could pretend that they were ice skates. Suddenly she was interested. I ran with it and quickly put them on her. She got the hang of it pretty quickly and we had a good time walking around the yard. She still fell a couple of times, but so did I. She was smiling and seemed to be proud of herself, so we'll see how it goes the next time I mention them.

We went to eat Mexican food tonight. It wasn't very crowded in the restaurant & there are some chairs with a sun and moon painted on them that she wanted to see. We let her walk the few feet over to the chairs to look at them, then she came right back. A few minutes later, they seated some pople at that table. She was highly offended that they would even think about letting someone sit in her chairs. We had to do a little talking to convince her that they belonged to the restaurant and that the poeple could sit there. She seemed to buy it, but they got dirty looks every time she thought of it. Right up until the chocolate desert arrived. This, of course, made those chairs suddenly very unimportant. Funny how chocolate does that!