Skip to main content

Willow wonders why, and why, and why, and why

Willow has started asking the dreaded "why?".
She has been repeating the question over and over and over again for the past day or two, so I won't write about it just yet. "Why?" you ask. Because I don't think I'm an expert on the topic just yet. "Why?" you ask again. It has been only a day or two. "Why?"
STOP IT!
Anyway, before Willow started asking why, she led up to it by repeating other questions, such as, "Where is my purse?" I don't know. "Where is my purse?" I don't know; we'll look for it. "Where is my purse?" I'm looking for it now; we'll find it. And so on and so forth.
I read someplace a parent's best response to repeated questions is to answer as well as you can for the first two or three questions then state, "I already told you the answer. I'm not answering again." Then you ignore the question if it keeps coming. Sometimes this works. Sometimes it doesn't. But it's the tact I use. And I've forgotten where I read about the strategy, so stop asking.
Recently Cherish and Lily have been battling a nasty stomach virus (just short of the dreadful norovirus, but nasty nonetheless). The bug brought Cherish home from work early on Monday, but she still had to work, locked up in the bedroom (by the bathroom). Willow, of course, wanted to join her. I told her no.
The conversation went something like this:
Willow, heading to the bedroom: "Mommy, read this book to me."
Me: "No, Willow, Mommy is busy working."
Willow: "I want her to read this book to me."
Me: "She's working. We can't bother her. I can read the book to you."
Willow: "No! I want Mommy to read this book to me!"
Me: "I told you, Mommy is working. We can't bother her."
Willow, heading to the bedroom: "I want Mommy to read this book to me!"
Me: "Willow. This is the last time I'm going to say this. Mommy is busy. Mommy is working. We can't bother her."
Willow turns and stomps over to me and gives me a serious look before saying, sternly: "Daddy, this is the last time I'm going to say this. I want Mommy to read this book to me."
You win, daughter. You win.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daddy gets the afternoon all to himself

Few times in the course of stay-at-home daddyhood does an event like this happen. This, indeed, is historic. I get to take my tail out of this house and go do whatever I want (within legal, moral and ethical bounds, of course). By myself. Alone. Indeed, I say ... indeed. Cherish's mother and grandmother are coming to take care of Willow for the afternoon, giving me a much-earned afternoon to myself. And this is what I'm going to do: I'm going to find the manliest, biggest-waste-of-time, money-wasting, violent movie I can, and I'm going to lay down my wife's hard-earned dime, and I'm going to watch that movie. My pick: "Immortals." I read in the local paper this morning that "Immortals" was rated at only 1 1/2 stars. It's supposed to be a horrible movie. Good. I'm going to bask in the crappy escape from baby poo. I'm going to inhale the smell of stale popcorn and that what-the-heck-is-that?-pee? odor. And I'm going to ...
2 comments
Read more

Today I work

We're traveling to Henderson, Tenn., for a long Thanksgiving weekend. That means: Good eating. Football. Hugs. Excitement for Willow. Giving thanks. Games. Family. And lastly, packing and hauling my little family down there. Yes, that last task is an enormous one (it's a big enough burden with just a husband and wife, but when you add a baby ... oh, my!). We leave tonight. So I know what lies ahead for me today. I'm at the keyboard now, steeling myself for the long day ahead. I have work to do. I've downloaded an app to my iPhone to help me pack for the new addition (Willow). The app is quite helpful, but it's overwhelming looking at the list and its 1,036,154 things to do. Do I even have enough time today to go through this list? And the app doesn't even begin to account for the things Mommy wants. If I were to add those requests to the list, we'd be up to ... just a sec ... calculating ... calculating ... here we go ... 3,176,203 things to...
2 comments
Read more

With baby comes packing (and a lot of it)

Willow, Che and I are traveling to see the grandparents, aunts, cousins and Mos (or is it Moes or is it Mo's or is it Moses?) in Henderson, Tenn., this weekend. And that brings up one of the big differences between being a couple without kids and being a couple with kids: packing for travel (they even have an app for that, God bless us packing-weary parents). Back in my pre-child days, packing hardly mattered, probably taking up 1 zillionth of a tenth of a percent of my brain capacity to do (six days equals six days of socks and underwear plus some T-shirts, some shorts, a pair or two of pants, put on some shoes, throw in some toothpaste, and I was off). That's hardly the case anymore. Take, for example, if you have a spit-up-prone baby. Do you take two burp clothes, four, eight or, maybe, 16? Better take 24. And how many diapers do you take? Or wipes? Do I need to take baby medicine? Is it going to be cold or warm or cold and warm or warm and hot then ... AACK!!! You get t...
2 comments
Read more