Widget Answers Why

WhyMommy.  It seems like a self-indulgent cry now, in this weird new cancer context, but it isn’t.  It’s my fondest wish.  For a year now, I have waited eagerly to hear my children ask, “Why, Mommy?” one or a hundred times a day.  The question is the embodiment of toddlerhood and preschoolness, and I am eager to enter those days of higher reasoning with my boys.

We’re starting.  In the morning, Widget climbs into our bed to cuddle when he wakes up.  The last few days, as we wait for the clock to read 6:00, he has asked, “Talk to me.”  So we talk, a bit, about the sky, or the trees, or the birds that we see and hear out the window, as we wait for the day to begin. 

This morning, he asked to talk about the sky.  So we did.  I asked him questions to spark his thinking.  What color is the sky? “Sky is white.”  Why is the sky white? (Ever-hopeful, I’ve been asking HIM why questions for months, but I’ve not been totally sure it gets through.)  But today, he said “Because there are clouds.”  YEAH!  HE GOT IT!

And then at breakfast, near the end of spooning 9 ounces of formula/milk/cereal into Little Bear’s mouth, we had another breakthrough, but even sweeter.  Little Bear was protesting a minute delay while I mixed more cereal, and Widget said “Bear cry.”  Yes, Bear is crying.  “Bear sick?”  No, Bear’s not sick.  He’s just crying.  Sometimes babies cry.  “Oh.”  Widget, do you know why babies cry?

“Because they need their moms.”

Yes.  Yes, they do.  Little one, you do understand.  And, day by day, I’m beginning to understand too.