138. The Questions That Make Us Question

If you're a parent you know you have asked some bizarre questions or said odd things. Logic is not innate in humans. You may have found yourself telling your child not to lick the supermarket floor or asking them how they managed to get their belt loop stuck on the rim of the basketball hoop. You may have found yourself trying not to laugh as you explain that if they stop pinching their arm, it won't hurt anymore. (And yes, these are all true stories.)

But I have come to find that with each successive child I have had, I have asked simpler and fewer questions. Perhaps this is because I'm getting lazier as a parent or I'm just getting used to finding my kids doing odd things. I don't think it's that my boys are any less experimental -- that being said, neither of them has electrocuted themselves yet, whereas Janie managed that before she could crawl. I think mostly I've just gotten used to the unconventional behavior that accompanies mini-humans. For instance, today I asked Berto "why did you put peanut butter in your ear?" 

Now, had this been my first child the question would have been simply "is that peanut butter in your ear?" But I no longer need to ask such questions. Of course that's peanut butter in his ear. Or in his diaper or between his toes. Even if he hasn't been given peanut butter in the last three days it is probably still peanut butter. And if it isn't? Well, we're just going to pretend it is because sometimes I just don't want to know what that mysterious semi-solid lump hanging into my child's skin is. So it's peanut butter.

Again, had this been my second child the question would have been "how did you get peanut butter in your ear?" I no longer need to ask that either. Without looking, without even being present during mealtime, I can see, smell, and feel that peanut butter was on the menu recently. I could probably even tell you how many meals ago it was. I know that the amount of stowaway spread discovered among the various crevices of my child's body is directly proportionate to the deliciousness of the sandwich being consumed multiplied by tiredness. I know that excitement=messy hands and tired=flailing appendages. There is no mystery now.

And so we come to why. Why did you put peanut butter in your ear, little man? This is not a question I expect an answer to. There is no answer, truly. Intention is limited in a nine-month old. He put it there because he has less coordination than a newborn sea turtle. He put it there because he got distracted by a strange tingling feeling he will one day associate with the word "itch." He put it there because the newly introduced taste of puréed legume causes chaotic reactions on his tastebuds, which overwhelm his still-adjusting nervous system and send his only-recently-mastered hand sensors into a frenzy. He did not mean to put it there. I know this. My question is largely rhetorical, spoken only to express my own humored frustration at having to clean up food from a place in which it has no business residing. I ask it to promote communication skills in my little human's brain. I ask it because something so ludicrous as creamed peanuts caking the membranes of a hearing organ deserves some kind of acknowledgement. 

I suppose if I had a fourth child the question would be "how long does it take peanut butter to solidify enough to fall off on its own?" And a fifth? Would a fifth child even register a question mark? Or merely receive a shoulder shrug? 

For now I continue asking questions that make me question how humans have managed to survive as long as we have. A species whose young habitually put tiny, rigid objects into their equally tiny but less rigid throats or jab themselves in the face with sharp objects should not logically be the dominate species of any landmass. And yet, here we are.