Saturday, October 1, 2011

The hard questions

I have dreaded the days of the "hard questions." You know, the questions that come from so far out of the blue, you stammer and stutter and try to figure out the best answer to give your child.

I am a firm believer in the "share as little as possible" method. I figure that if I answer the question as simply as possible, with as few details as possible, there's an off chance that a simple answer is all he was looking for. On the other hand, if he wants more than that, he can just ask for more.

I thought we'd have a long time before such questions were a problem. No such luck.

We were on the way to a pumpkin patch/corn maze/petting zoo this morning, and we passed a huge cemetery. All the headstones were the rectangle ones that stand about 3 feet high, and each stone had a vase in front of it with artificial flowers.

Upon seeing stone after stone and vase after vase of flowers, Biscuit said, "What's that? What are those things?" and pointed toward the cemetery.

"Those are vases of flowers to decorate those things, making them look nice," Jeff said.

"Oh," Biscuit said. It was quiet for an incredibly long 10 seconds or so, then Biscuit shouted, "Look! There's a cow!

Whew! That wasn't too bad. Jeff told him enough to satisfy him but not enough that it would freak him out.

If only all explanations were that simple!

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