Questions and Answers

Michael has been asking questions since he first learned how to properly string two words together.

The first ones were simple: what’s that, where, how and of course why.

His questions come continually these days. But they don’t often make much sense, and most of them leave me puzzling for a suitable response. For years I’ve prided myself on having a fairly broad range of knowledge about things, so that should a small child of mine ask me lots of questions about his world (e.g. “why is the sky blue?” or “how do fish breathe underwater?” or “where do twinkies come from?”) I’d be able to answer them competently.

Michael’s questions don’t fit the standard form, though:

“Why that’s loud?”
“How you’re my dad?”
“How sprinklers get me wet?”
“Why I ate strawberries?”
“How they running?”

These are examples of some of the more sensible questions he rattles off. They at least have some basis for an appropriate answer. Many of them, though, are so obtuse I can’t even recall them. He asked one while we were at the hardware store the other day, and it truly short-circuited my brain. Even the store clerk stopped scanning our purchases momentarily, and stared at me, slack-jawed. I just gave her a withered look and mumbled something about how I really don’t even know where to begin to tackle that question.

He’ll ask questions about stuff he himself does, like why he spilled flour on the floor. He’ll ask questions about things in his environment, like why the cat is black, or how those things growing in the garden are tomatoes. He’ll ask questions about what someone else dreamed about, even those said person hasn’t awakened yet, assuming they’re even staying at our house at the time. He even asks why he’s happy.

Sometimes, he’ll ask a perfectly sane question, but will provide zero context:

“Daddy, what’s that over there?”

“What?”

“That!” (pointing)

“There are a lot of things over there, I don’t know what you’re pointing at.”

“That thing! The sprinkler!”

“It’s a sprinkler.”

“Oh.”

Most of his questions come while he’s watching one of his movies. His current favorite set are the two renditions of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” We have the Gene Wilder version and the Johnny Depp version, and he likes to watch both of them (not at the same time – I have my limits). And while watching one of these films, he’ll ask questions about what’s going on, and why. “Why she turned into a blueberry?” “Why she went down the garbage chute?” “Why he fell in the chocolate?” “Why they’re singing?”

He knows the answer. Of course he knows. If one of us gives him a correct answer to one of his questions, it merely queues up the next question. If we give him an incorrect answer, he’ll correct us immediately.

It’s like he can’t just sit and silently absorb media content, he has to regurgitate it verbally. Basically, he watches movies with his mouth.

Fortunately, I’ve recently discovered a little trick that is nothing short of a miracle for handling his unending and nonsensical questions: I turn it right around on him.

When he asks something, I just ask him back “What do you think?”

It’s like verbal gold, and it has never failed me.

He has to answer his own question, and he actually likes doing that. It gives him a chance to express himself, to completely ruminate on what he’s observed, and it relieves me of most of the burden of having to unravel his question and sculpt a response.

I think I can skate along using this technique for years.

Hopefully, until he asks “Can I have the car keys?”