Another reason I'll never be on Jeopardy!? I don't know anything.

Having a five-year-old around is like the worst, longest, most random IQ test ever.

Yesterday Sam added:

"Mom? How do we make words?"

and

"Mom? Why does smoke come out of our mouths when it is cold?"

to the list of questions that I neither know, nor care about, the answer to.



He asks these things and PEOPLE, let me tell you, I try. I try really hard to come up with a response. One both truthful and age-appropriate. Both accurate and concise.

But it is HARD and I don't like hard things. I like easy things. Thinking hurts and makes me tired and MY GOD I'm just trying to make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and that is challenging all on it's own because we seem to buy the kind of jelly that comes with a cloaking device when you put it in the fridge. I don't need a lighting round.

It's not enough that I know how to find and play Wonder Pets on the television, now I need to know how the television makes pictures, too?

And, jesus, the SCOPE of these questions. I mean, How do we make words??? Where do you even START with that? As I'm stumbling through my understanding of how we FORMED THE FRICKIN ENGLISH LANGUAGE, it becomes clear that he actually wants to know WHERE IN OUR BODY we make words.

"Our teef? Our moufs?" He queries, eyebrows drawn together so concertedly it is as if he is trying to parody confusion.

So then I have to pull together whatever bits of information I've managed to retain over the years about voice boxes and whatnot.

I've started telling him, "Sam, I need you to stop asking questions right now." Which makes me feel like parent of the year, you know.

Squashing creativity and inquisitiveness is way easier than dealing with creativity and inquisitiveness.