Why?

You always hear about that phase where children begin to question everything. The common response to anything is "why". I believe we have hit the precursor to that stage, and it is equally as difficult to come up with appropriate responses.

This is how the average conversation with Riley goes these days.

"Mommy, what's tha-yat (yes, I swear "that" is pronounced as a two-syllable word with a distinct drawl in the middle)?"

I respond with the name for whatever he's pointing at.

His follow up question: "What's it doing?"

And I respond with some sort of answer.

To which he almost always replies, "Oh, ok" as if that was what he thought.

Sometimes this is easy. Example: "What's tha-yat?" "A dog." "What's it doing?" "Going for a walk." "Oh, ok."

Sometimes I have absolutely no idea how to respond. "What's tha-yat (pointing to something in road)?" Realizing it's a dead animal, I say, "A squirrel." "What's it doing?" "Sleeping." "Oh, ok. When's it going to wake up?" Hmm, no response to that.

This conversation also varies slightly when something or someone is on his mind. This morning he pointed to my purse and said "pocketbook", a word he learned from Granny Annie. Then he said, "Where's Granny Annie?" "In Florida." "What's she doing?" "Drinking coffee." (Seems likely.)

I guess I shouldn't complain. At least I can make up answers at this point and he doesn't know better than to call me on them. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when he starts learning things that I don't know how to answer.