Why?

Kemper has become a champion user of the word "why". He's a textbook case, actually. Lately it seems that no matter what you say to him, he'll ask why (when he isn't shouting "no!", that is). And when you tell him, he'll respond to your answer with another why. Arrrgh. It's enough to drive a person nutty.

I can understand the significance of this stage - he's taking in so much information all the time, and this new word can help him make sense of things. Now that the boys talk so well, I sometimes forget how much they still don't know about life, the world, the way things work. So I try to be patient, and try to answer all of the questions. Which doesn't mean I don't sympathize with the comment I read somewhere recently (maybe in one of my parenting magazines?). A father said that sometimes when he just can't deal with answering any more questions, he'll say, "No one knows why". I haven't tried that one yet, as I think it might be lost on Kemper at this age.

But I've been thinking about Why now that I hear it so often, and I realized that we never stop asking it. Or at least, I don't. We just don't often ask it out loud. There are so many things I'd love to know why they happened, or why I do some of the annoying things I do. I suppose in some ways, I have to admire the way that a three year old believes that there is always an answer. At what point, I wonder, do we learn that this just isn't true?