Curiouser and Curiouser

Anyone that has a curious child had better be on their toes 24/7. Answering questions peppered in rapid succession while driving to the grocery store and wondering aloud about altered reality, needs to be accepted as de rigueur. 

“What if my head was 500 times the size it is right now?” 

I suppose there might be times when your brain is occupied with adult thoughts like how much it’s going to cost to repair the 4 Runner’s broken air conditioner and your instinct is to just respond: “That’s ridiculous!” or “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard…now, eat your lunch.” But, with the patience of Job, you consider the content of the question and answer with a seriousness of tone that mimics the questioner.

“Well, I suppose it would be difficult to hold up a head that size on a regular sized body. And I don’t suppose you would be able to fit through doors or enter too many buildings with such a big head."

This questioning stage based on curiosity and wonder came on the heels of a period of time when my child uttered the word ‘Mom’ 4,000 times a day – at a minimum. At times, the utterance wasn’t followed by any cogent thought, but it seems simply saying the word ‘Mom’ itself offered comfort. Curiosity and wonder, of course, are vital character traits for a would-be scientist. Wondering at the world and all that is in it occupies most of your day. There are the many, many questions but also the statements of fact, known to be the absolute truth to anyone your child’s age. Duh! 

Some questions:

“What would happen if people had 4 legs and 3 arms?” 

“Do aliens have birthdays?”

“Why is the grass green?” Followed quickly by “Why is the sky blue?” 

“Wouldn’t it be cool if you could walk upside down?” 

“How many trees are there on the planet Earth?” 

There are the questions of a more spiritual nature: 

“Does God have a headquarters in outer space?” 

“When you die, do you go up or down from the earth?” 

 “Did you know that there are only two people in the world who know everybody? God and Santa.” 

There are questions of perceived necessity: 

“Is there such a thing as a pee vacuum?” 

“If you had a super power, what would it be?” 

“Did you know that your head is waterproof?” 

"Did you know that your head is waterproof?"

And then there are the random thoughts, standing on their own, that come seemingly out of the blue: 

“I love the word ‘underwear.’” 

“I’m going to be somebody famous some day! But do not tell anyone else. Keep a low profile.” 

“I’m going to win the Nobel Prize for inventing stuff.” 

“I don’t want to spend my entire life in America. I want to see the world and travel.” 

“I always wanted to try a turtleneck sweater.” 

Sometimes a wise eight-year-old just wants to offer his time-honored insight:

One morning Harry came across me in the bedroom and I was crying. “Mommy why are you crying?” he asked with great concern. I told him that something had made me sad. He quickly offered, “It’ll be alright.” Then added, “Sometimes life is like that.” 

Another day, we were getting ready for school and it was a particularly rough morning. Harry was really tired (which often happens when we hit Thursday of a full week of early mornings going to school) and I was tired too. I hadn’t slept very much for a few nights, so I was kind of emotionally raw. I was trying to talk to him about trying to be a good boy and to help me when he could and to try to listen better, etc. etc. My voice started to crack but Harry was listening quite attentively. I managed to say through my tears, “I’m doing the best that I can, Harry.” To which he replied, “It’s O.K. Mom, you’re getting the hang of it!” 

A day doesn’t go by without my son surprising me by sharing a certain thought or asking a particularly challenging question. But there also isn’t a day that goes by without him bringing a smile to my face and a little shake of my head, a physical indicator of my astonishment at the curiosities of a young working brain. 

Seeing the world through the eyes (and the mind) of a child like this is an incomparable experience. To wonder again at things that you had forgotten are close to miraculous, to see possibilities where you thought there was simply no chance, to be buoyed by the ebullience inherent in the voice of a child constantly in search of discovery…Well, nothing compares.

But I would be amiss not to mention the sheer humor involved in raising such a child: 

“One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind…that happened a thousand years ago, Mom…when you were nine.”

My Astronaut.