Does it ever surprise you when your children ask questions? I've been doing this "motherhood" thing a pretty long time, and I'm rarely surprised but often I am amused and intrigued by the questions my children come up with. So when I walked into the bathroom last night to brush my teeth (after working on the computer for about a half an hour while the girls were supposed to be getting their jammies on and their teeth brushed), I discovered that there had been some very interesting activity going on right there in front of the bathroom sink.
"So . . . . . what's this white stuff all over the mirror in the bathroom?" I asked our Miss Curiosity. "What do you mean, mom?" she asked, looking completely clueless as to what I might be referring to. "Here, Honey, take a look. See all that white stuff all over the bathroom mirror?" I asked. "Do you know what it is?" "Oh, sure! That's the same stuff that is all over the counter, and in the sink, and on the carpeting." OK, now I'm pretty sure that she figures that is an answer.
"Oh, well . . . . but what is it?" I ask, trying to see if she is just dodging the question. But she isn't. She is completely serious. "Mom . . . " she says as if it should be perfectly obvious and logical. "After I took my bath, I wanted to see what would happen if I put some of that pretty pink powder in my hand and then went "POOF" and blew on it." OK, now I see. "So what happened?" I asked, still trying to figure out how it got smeared all over the mirror over the sink as well as all over both mirrors by the bathtub. "Did it just like float around in the air, or what did you do to it to get it to stick to the mirror like that?" I really tried not to laugh.
"Well, when it was all over I thought it would be fun to see what would happen if I mixed it with water." And? "It was so great! I swooshed it around on the mirror and it made a cool design!" But this was only the most recent adventure for Miss Curiosity. At Christmas time she found the food coloring and wondered what it would do if she put some on her hands. So she had red stains on her hands for a few days.
She also told me that one day she wondered what would happen if she ate one of the pretty little Rolaids in the bottle WAY UP on top of the medicine cabinet. "So what happened?" I asked. "Nothing," she said, apparently rather disappointed. "But would I die if I ate all of them?" she wondered. "Gee, I don't know," I replied. "I've never tried it, and I've never heard of anyone else trying it." Hmmmmm. . . . . but please don't try it, I thought.
And then there are the questions that seemingly come out of nowhere. Usually right when I'm in the middle of doing something that requires a few of my remaining brain cells. "Mom, what is blood made of?" she asked one day. Um, it's been a while since I studied biology so I can't remember. "What is catchup made of?" came pretty quickly after the blood question, so I'm guessing she had been trying to figure out how sometimes people get hurt on the TV, and there is "blood" but we know it isn't "real blood." Maybe it's catchup? Well, I do happen to know a bit more about catchup than blood, so I told her about tomatoes and stuff.
Another time it was, "Mom, what's inside your eyeballs?" Beats me! "How do you make slime?" SLIME!!! Now how would I know how to make slime? "What is skin made of?" and "How do bones get inside your body?" Good opportunity to talk about how God makes every one unique and special . . . . but still, I'm not a dr. or a scientist or a biologist, or a medical examiner.
"What would happen if I ate this worm?" and "How does food go down your throat?" and then the most recent one (just before the talcum powder experiment) "Mom, can bugs get into your brain?" Now WHY would a nine year old ask about bugs in your brain? Maybe she's been watching Animal Planet too much. After all, the other day there was a program about how chameleons turn red when they get mad. I really don't know where some of these questions come from, but I'm sure all of this curiosity will eventually lead her somewhere. And I just hope she survives. I've always had this theory and I've told my older children: "I don't want to know about it until you've lived through it." Then we'll talk.
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