Concepts are confusing

When Biscuit asks questions like, "Mom, why do we brush our teeth?" it's a no-brainer. That's really easy to explain.

Some questions are a little harder, like, "Mom, are all snakes mean or are all snakes nice?"

"Most snakes won't usually bother you unless you bother them," I said.

"Mom, will all snakes try to bite you?" Biscuit asked. "Would it hurt if they bite you?"

"Yes, it would hurt if a snake bit you," I said. "Some snakes are poisonous, and if they bite you, it will make you really sick. But again, if you leave them alone, they usually won't mess with you."

Not the simplest of conversations, but not too bad.

But then there are tougher things to explain.

"Mom, what do soldiers do?"

"Mom, what happened to the dinosaurs?"

One interesting question from the other night was "Mom, is bluegrass real?"

Our town has free concerts every Sunday night at parks around the area, and this past Sunday night featured two bluegrass bands. We packed a picnic dinner, grabbed our chairs and away we went.

But that afternoon, when I told Biscuit where we were going, he asked me if bluegrass is real.

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"Well, you said that the cartoons aren't real, and they're on TV. And bluegrass is on the radio, so it's not real either, right?" Biscuit said.

"Bluegrass is real," I told him. "We've seen people play bluegrass before, remember?"

But he didn't.

"How do they play it on the radio?" Biscuit asked.

I simply cannot get into a conversation about sound waves and whatnot with a 4-year-old. First of all, I'd have to study up on it. Then I'd have to try to break it down to his level. Nope, not gonna do it.

"Well ..." I said. "Real musicians record the music, just like I record you singing sometimes. Then radio stations play music just like I play music for you on the computer. And the music comes out in everyone's radios."

"Oh," Biscuit said. "Okay."

And that was it. I guess all he needed was me making an effort to explain it to him.

Biscuit has been really fascinated with what is real and what isn't. And I get it. It's a hard concept. Newscasters are real, but TV show characters aren't. The people buying houses on the channel I like to watch are real, and the guys refurbishing cars on the show Jeff likes are real, but talking animals and superheroes are not.

The answers used to be more black and white, but now, there's a lot of gray area.

And his gray area questions are causing me gray hair!