So. The school run is approximately 15 minutes give or take traffic and lights. Most days I get to listen to the banter of two five year olds discussing One Direction, mummification, assembly and school dinners, but one day a week it’s just me and Stinky Spider-Man. On these days I try and keep the conversation about school because he will never tell me what they do on a day to day basis and the lack of control kills me, however, he’s not as keen on that idea, so tends to use it as a time to fire questions at me. Here are fifteen of the questions I’ve had in the last week.
1. Why do we get scabs?
2. Why can’t we just be bones?
3. Why don’t skeletons bleed?
4. Why do girls have minnies?
5. Why does daddy have hair in his armpits?
6. Why do you cut yours?
7. Does that mean it will go away for ever?
8. Why do minnies get hair on them?
9. What happens if all the countries in the world didn’t exist?
10. What happens if I was the first person ever to be born in the whole wide world?
11. But who would I play with while I’m waiting for the second person to be born?
12. How long would it take?
13. Would it be Spider-Man?
14. Why don’t you go to school?
15. Why do I have to not talk again until we get home?
I can’t even remember my answers, I was too busy trying not to crash the car.
Put me out of my misery, reassure me I’m not the only one who is slowly going insane…What questions are your children prone to asking right now?
My brain hurts a lot this week, and considering it usually hurts between 7am and 7.30pm every day, you know this must be bad.
The noise of two children, especially after a week of half-term, along with my desperate (and poor) attempt at cutting back on gin are weighing heavy and loud. Remember when I was looking for the mute button? *sobs* I actually miss those days.
On Saturday I tried an experiment. Between the 07:00 and 07:30 time slot I said the word “OK” 57 times.
“Mummy, let’s play Captain America and Spider Mummy”
“Ok”
“Actually, No. Let’s play Captain America and Captain America’s Mummy”
Ok”
“So, Captain America’s Mummy, you need this…this sword”
“Ok”
“So, I’m Captain America, He’s Fat Man, and Daddy…let’s pretend we don’t have a daddy, and daddy is…er Captain America’s Brother”
“Ok”
“And Captain America needs to ride a bike…a bike without stabilisers, and Captain America’s Mummy says ‘oooh, be carefulllll Captain America”
“Ok”
“Then Daddy…Daddy comes on and says “Don’t go on that bike Captain America, Captain America isn’t Captain America he’s ACTUALLY Iron Man, and you’re The Hulk”
“Ok”
“And then. Right. So let’s pretend I’m Iron Man, and you’re the Hulk, and Daddy is Spider-Man’s daddy, and…and…and we need Cheerios”
“Ok”
“So I’m Iron Man, and this is my gun. I shoot gun things out OK?”
“OK”
“So. We need to build a den, and to build this den we need a torch, let’s use your phone ok THE HULK”
“OK”
“Right, so we’ve got our torch, and we’re hunting, we’re looking for people to kill and you say “Don’t Kill people OK?”
“Ok”
“And I say, I WILL KILL People if I want to because they’re baddies, and you’ll say “NO PUT THEM IN JAIL” and I’ll say “OHHKAYY THEN” so I’ll catch them, and I’ll put them in jail, then we can all go for Ice cream”
“Ok”
That was about the jist of half an hour before I’d had my cup of tea.
Then over the weekend, questions started, questions which I am totally not smart enough, or prepared enough, to deal with, have eased themselves into my already frantic days.
Just when I’m trying to stack the dishwasher.
“Mummy. The earths core is hot isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s right, very hot”
“What’s next to the Earths core?”
“Something else?” I say hopefully whilst trying to arrange the casserole dish so that it doesn’t catch on the spinny thing.
“No. I don’t think so. Because if that was the case, we could dig down to the core. Why don’t we get hot? Why is our planet not hot if the middle of it is hot? Why is it cold and wet a lot of the time”
The one while I’m negotiating the drive home..
“Mummy. What’s this wobbly stuff on my leg? Why does my leg not have any bones in?”
“It does have bones in, it just under your muscle, and fatty tissue”
“No, it’s not there, I can’t feel any bones”
“You have bones, it’s your skeleton…remember the skeleton? Remember how we said if you didn’t have a skeleton and bones you’d just be all floppy” (I am in no way endorsing that this is actually what happens…but let’s face it, he’s my child, he’s never going to be a doctor so we’re ok if the facts are slightly wooly)
“No, I can’t feel it, why can’t I feel it? And why would I go floppy? Your tummy is all floppy and you can still stand up and run about”.
Then there’s the question whilst I’m changing The Chunky Monkey’s Nappy
“Mummy, why can’t we crack this open?”
Not looking up “Excuse me? Crack what open?”
“Our heads? Why can’t we crack our heads open and peel our skin off all the way down to our knees?”
“Because, well. We can’t, we’re human”
“So, why do we have skin? How do we get skin?”
“Because we grow skin”
“How? When do we grow skin?”
“When you’re a baby, before you’re born, and you’re growing in Mummy’s tummy, that’s when you grow skin”
“How did I get into your tummy?”
“Er…Ask your teachers”.
In some random queue.
“Mummy, how do you make lifts”
“Well…builders make lifts”
“yes…but how do they construct them?” (I’m really regretting teaching him that word, that, along with atrocious and compromise have really come back and bitten me in the bottom a few times)
“Well…I think they do it in a factory…”
“You THINK mummy? Don’t you know?”
hmm. “Yes, they DO do it in a factory”
“So, how is it delivered then? How do they get it to where it needs to be?”
“In a lorry”
“That must have been a big lorry…actually ACTUALLY it must have been a MASSIVE lorry”
“Yup. It was huge”
“Did you see it?”
“No…”
“then how did you know?”
And just as I’m tucking him in this evening…
“Mummy. Why do some people have orange hair?”
“well… lot’s of people have different colour hair and some where glasses and…”
“Is it because they eat a lot of carrots when they were in their mummy’s tummies?”
“Yes. Yes it is.”
While all this is going on, their is the on going counting tourettes being fired at full blast in the background, alternating with what appears to be some sort of new age rap version of Baa Baa Black Sheep and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Then, after all that, even as I read through the post (to make sure I don’t sound too ridiculously thick), and the thought of his questioning voice sends the sort of shivver down your spine which just makes you want to put your fingers in your ears and go “LA LA LA LA LAA LA LA LAAAA LEAVE ME ALONNEEE” I can’t help being thrilled that his mind is ticking away, that he’s motivated when it comes to learning, I just sometimes wish the questions would come a little less intensely. OH…and I really really wish that they were more along the lines of “how do I make pizza?” or, “Can I get you a gin and tonic mummy”.
Instead, however, they are questions which not only hurt my brain, but make me question my already questionable intellegence, which is rather gutting as I thought I would have at least two more years before I would.