The Boy Pummeled Me

My son pummeled me with questions today. He let loose and let fly. Almost everyone of the following words would be appropriate.

assail, assault, baste, batter, beat, belabor, buffet, drub, hammer, pound, smash, thrash, thresh. Informallambaste. Slang clobber. Idioms: rain blows on. See attack/defend, strike/miss.
I must say that I am ever so proud of him. They covered anything and everything a four year-old can think of. I won't slam you with the entire list or any sort of complete rundown, but I will share a number of them.

This morning we began our day by discussing underpants. He wanted to know why I don't wear Scooby-Doo, Thomas, Spiderman or Bob The Builder Underpants. I explained that they didn't make any in my size. He accepted that for a moment and then reminded me of the conversation he and I recently had about the size of bodyparts.

So I had to add to the explanation by saying that I prefer plain underwear to which he asked why? So I provided the additional explanation of it allowed me to use my imagination and pretend. This worked.

A short time later we ate breakfast. I had oatmeal and he had pancakes that he had specially requested. So we went through the discussion of why daddy didn't want pancakes including special segments on how to say pancake, syrup, fork, knife and grumpy in Hebrew.

Breakfast ended and we rushed into our clothes to start our busy day. It was off to the Purim Carnival where he won yet another goldfish, made me climb up 50 feet on a rickety metal staircase to go down a slide with him and spent more minutes asking me about the staircase, why was Haman so mean, would I punch Haman in the nose and could he please, please, please play another game.

But there was no time to play as we had to rush off to attend the birthday party of some kids in his class. It was held at a bowling alley. And in a strange coincidence it is the same bowling alley that my bachelor party was held at on March 16, 1996, almost nine years to the day. And yes the answer to your question is I could never have imagined that my life would look like this.

At the bowling alley he asked me why he needed special shoes, if it would hurt if someone dropped a bowling ball on their toe, why was the carpet red, why are their different size urinals and why did the man paint his arm, (he had many tattoos) not to mention the question of why were the man and woman kissing so much.

Eventually the party ended and we went to celebrate my grandfather's 91st birthday. I teased my grandfather about being 150 and this set off more questions. Mainly my son yelling at my grandfather that he shouldn't lie because if his daddy said that he was 150 than he must be 150 years-old.

So I had to explain why I said that, why it is ok to tease people sometimes and not other times and a host of assorted questions.

My grandparents live 40 miles from my home so it is is a guaranteed trip. Sometimes it is really easy and the freeway does 80 or so the whole way home and sometimes there is gridlock. Either way you know that you just need to make yourself comfortable because you are going to be there for a while.

In the car he hit me with questions about the signs, asked me if grandpa was going to die and when and then asked me again not to die.

The next question was one that I hadn't thought about in a long time. Who made G-d? What does he eat? Does G-d have a mommy and a daddy? Does he live with them?

I redirected the question about who made G-d because I want to give him an intelligent answer. I can't just say you need to have faith, that is not good enough for me. I want to have something that is coherent and logically constructed. It may be that I come back to the faith answer, but I want to spend some time thinking about it before I do.

Just before bed he hit me with another question. Why don't boys have vaginas with the addition of don't you want a vagina and a penis. I had to bite my lip because the sassy side of me had a couple of smart answers.

Anyway, I gave him some answers, told him that I love him very much and then asked him to keep asking questions. I love it.

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