There’s a risk this post will sound too much like I’m bragging. I guess maybe I am, but the real point is to put it somewhere that I (and, much more importantly, Nora) will find it again someday. Nora’s favorite question is now, “Why?”

It had to happen some time and, if her parents are any indication, we’re in for a whole lot of “why?” (much of it snarky) over the next few decades.

Many of these current “why?” questions are excruciating and unanswerable (“why is paint?”) or bizarre (“why are these my shoes?”). I thought I had her when she said, “Daddy, why are you?” and I said, “I am because I think, love.” But, without pausing, she put Descartes to shame, “why do you think?”. Drat. She’s too smart for me already. In a related question answering session she asked me, “what is the opposite of you?” and I told her, “a lawyer.”

This weekend we were at the grocery store and, in the checkout lane, she asks, “Daddy, why is there summer and winter?” I thought, “ah ha!! I know this one, I can totally do this.” So I explained that the Earth is a giant ball that spins every day. The spinning is what we call day and night, but the axis of this spinning is tilted with respect to the plane of our orbit around the Sun (demonstrates with convenient apple and stem). The result is that one part of the planet gets more sunlight, more directly, and for longer periods of time every day than other parts. Which part this is changes progressively throughout the year and this causes the seasons. I explained, for example, that this summer when it was hot and sunny here her friend Salomé was experiencing winter in Bolivia.

Now I don’t expect a nearly 3 year old to get most of this. I give full answers to questions because I like to and because I want her to feel loved and respected or some junk; she seems to eat it up and it’s crazy fun trying to explain the ecliptic to a toddler. At the end of my explanation she did the little nod that she often does, but the man in front of us in line, whom I had not noticed was listening, gave a very thoughtful and pleased “huh!” with intonation that said, “so THAT’s how that works.”

Public service accomplished. :)