Toddler, Defined

Joely asks "why?" a lot.

Throughout any given day, "why?" is her stock response to most things I say to her, whether my utterance be a question, a request, a direction, etc. And usually when I answer the "why?", I get another one immediately after, and so on.

E.g., this evening as we were getting ready for bed, she was tossing the diaper cream around while she was sitting on the bed getting her hair brushed by me. The diaper cream container is Industrial Size, so it is not without heft. This logic prompted me to say, "Joely, please don't throw around the diaper cream."

Her response: "why?"

So, I said "Because, sweetie - it's kind of heavy, and I don't want it to fall on your toes"

Her response: "why?"

Because I had some time (and some energy left in the reserves), I decided that there was potential here for a Parenting Moment. So, I looked at Joely and said, "Sweetie, when you ask Daddy "why?", you must listen to my answer. Asking "why?" is fine; in fact it's great - that's how we learn things. If you listen to what Daddy says when you say "why?", you will learn the answers to your questions. Do you understand?"

Her response: "why?"

Trumped again.