Wednesday, November 09, 2005

The questions begin

My 5-year-old hit two major milestones this month. First, she is reading. In fact, she reads better than I do, I think. I realize that this now means that the sponge which is her brain has stopped it's one-way path of absorbing everything in its wake, and is now providing output as well. We can only hope she uses this new-found power for good rather than evil. I already know that Kid#2's plans focus on an evil-only lifestyle, but I think with Kid#1 we've tried to steer her down a simpler path.

The other milestone was that she has asked her first questions of me that I actually had to look up to find an answer. First, she asked why the sky is blue. No really. And she caught me off-guard, so I wasn't prepared to tell her the real story, about the horrible mistake God made on laundry day by mixing his white clouds with his favorite blue hat. The other question she asked was what three things made mammals unique. Okay, she was quizzing me on this one, because she learned it in preschool. Of course, Google came to the rescue by explaining that mammals all have mammary glands, the presence of three middle ear bones, and hair. Hah-betcha didn't get the ear thing, did ya.

How did dads save face before the internet?

1 comment:

Howard said...

Well there's Robin Williams response:

"Why is the sky blue?"
"Because of the atmosphere."
"Why is there atmosphere?"
"Because we need to breathe."
"Why do we need to breathe?"
"How the f*** should I know. Two weeks ago you were sitting in your own s*** now you're Carl Sagan?"

Or if you watched West Wing, there was the episode where the cute NASA administrator took Josh out star gazing and explained it all.