Girl Reading in a Sunlit Room, Carl Holsøe
76.
That’s how many times my son asked me the question, “Why?” before bedtime last Thursday. I counted.
Why are these pants so soft?
Why is that a machine?
Why am me still growing?
(That last one is my favorite. I never want him to start using correct grammar.)
It’s a little bit exhausting, the barrage of toddler curiosities that interrupt my thoughts at any given moment. Sometimes I’m good at engaging. I sit down on the floor with him and we talk with big expressions and long, winding sentences. Other times, I answer on autopilot.
“Because they’re cotton.”
“Because it was made that way.”
“Because you’re only three.”
It’s the natural response for a brain that can only compute so much information at a time. And kids send out a lot of information. So much of a mother’s work is done inside her own head, where she is forever receiving, processing, and putting out data. Beyond the sheer logistics of being a parent, working, and managing a home and social life, this perpetual information cycle is what turns us into walking zombies. We might not be tired as a result of hard physical labor (although that is sometimes the case, as well) but we are often mentally and emotionally spent as a result of the neverending download of questions, appointments, checklists, and survival of actual tiny people that we contend with all day, every day.