Everything I've read says that the "why?" phase of childhood hits hard at age 3. Well, apparently those who walk early, why early because, at 2 years and 4 months, Gracie is so the Queen of Why right now.
My cousin has a girl about six months older than Gracie and linked to this video (go to 7:00 for the relevant part) a while back. We hadn't gotten there quite yet; so I thought it was funny, but not painfully funny. Now we're in that same boat.
This morning, I announced, "OK, I'm going to change Lyla's diaper, then we're going bye bye."
"Why?" Gracie asked. "Where we going to?"
I knew she wouldn't be happy with the answer of the Department of Public Health because she'd obviously not know what any of those words meant. "We're going to get Lyla's birth certificate," I told her. "A birth certificate is a piece of paper that says when you were born and what your mommy and daddy's names are."
"Why we go get Lyla's birf certitate?" she asked, intrigued.
"Because we need it for Lyla to get baptized" I explained.
"Why Lyla get baptized today?"
"She's getting baptized, just like you did when you were a little baby, but she's not getting baptized today. We're just getting the birth certificate today. She's getting baptized in a couple weeks."
I left the room before she could ask anything else, got Lyla ready to go, and came back to get Gracie.
"Come on, Honey," I said. "We need to go downstairs and get your shoes on so we can go bye bye."
"Why?" she asked sincerely.
"Because," I said and picked her up.
The whole way to the health department (the closest place to pick up the birth certificate) Gracie asked me over and over why we were going there, why Lyla was getting baptized today, and why we all had to get baptized. I tried to explain it again and again and told her we could look at pictures of her baptism on the computer when we got home.
"We're getting her birth certificate so that she can get baptized in a couple weeks. You get baptized at church, but she's not getting baptized today."
"Heeeeeere's Lyla's church!" she announced when we pulled up, as if she'd be looking for it all day.
"No, Honey. This is called The Department of Public Health. It's just a random building. An office," I started to trail off.
We all headed in and did what needed to be done.
"Why Lyla get baptized, Mommy?" Gracie asked again as we got back into the car.
"She didn't get baptized yet, Sweetheart. She's going to in a couple weeks. We just got her birth certificate today."
This conversation repeated itself over and over again the whole way home.
"Why Lyla have to get baptized, Mommy?" she asked when we got home.
"So she can be a part of the church," I told her.
"Why she have to be part of the church?" she asked.
"Well... so God can take care of her."
"Why God have to take care of her?"
"He takes care of all of us, Sweetheart."
"Why he takes care of all of us?"
"Because He loves us."
"Why God loves us?"
That was my cue to start ignoring her. Who can answer these questions?
A few minutes later, my mom called and I put her on speaker as I always do.
"Hi girls. What are you up to?" she asked.
"We just got home," I said.
"Oh, where did you go?"
"TO LYLA'S CHURCH!" Gracie shouted.
3 comments:
1) Gracie is so darn cute
2) I am tahnkful that Aydan is not even close to the WHY stage....behind on talking does have some positives :)
oh, abd can't wait for the story when Lyla actually gets baptized....Gracie's gonna be like "Why are we doing this. we alresdy went to her church". :)
LOL totally! She'll probably say it right to the priest, too :)
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