Quotes & Questions

Many months ago Everett entered the Why phase. I meant to write about it at the time but fell behind on the blog for a while. A recent blog entry described questions about how things work. Now he is also beginning to ask more difficult questions that at the very least cause us to pause and think:

“Do dogs like mirrors?”

In our bedroom is a picture of Melissa’s belly when she was pregnant. E has looked at it and asked about it many times over the last couple years, and in the last couple weeks he asked “How did I get in there?” We did not anticipate talking to him about this subject at such a young age.

With regard to the squirrel that died in our neighbor’s back yard: “Is the skeleton dead? Why did he die? Did he fall out of the tree?” This led to a series of questions about death over the next couple weeks. Melissa explained that animals grow old and die, so naturally he started asking if the same applied to people. And within a couple days of that he asked “Mommy, if persons are young, do they die?” He has not yet asked whether this could happen to him but we feel confident that he is starting to think about it. These are answers for which we want to choose our words very carefully.

And here are a few recent quotes:

“If you hurt yourself and the blood comes out, then you have to go to the hospital. If you hurt yourself and no blood comes out then you can get a band aid.“

”When I am older I will get the grown up hairs and they will be brown. These are not grown up hair.“ Here he was referring to the hair on his head and his arms.

Everett recently accompanied Chris to fix the car. As we gathered our tools and were headed out of the house he said “We’re boys so we fix things.” When Melissa asked if she fixed things also he added “Mom, you fix some little things too.”

During a recent visit to the grocery store Melissa said to Everett “I’m trying to hurry up and finish before you run out of patience” to which he replied “Well I only have one patient left!”

These quotes and questions illustrate some of the great privileges of being a parent: observing your children in a way that no one else can, and watching new abilities emerge like humor, compassion, creative exploration and critical thinking.

 

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