At times it seems as if every word coming out of Nathan’s mouth is ‘why?’. Other times it is every second or third word, or he uses it to turn our answers into the next question. He uses it so much that he considers it his word. If we ever ask him ‘why?’, he will tell us not to use that word because “it’s my word!”.
Sometimes it is really hard to answer all the questions. I try very hard to answer them all without resorting to “it just is” or “just because”. In fact, I very rarely say either, though the temptation is great, particularly when the questioning goes something like….
Why is today Wednesday? Because yesterday was Tuesday. Why was yesterday Tuesday? Etc, etc, etc.
Nathan is a great fan of the phrase ‘just because’. I try to tell him that it isn’t a satisfactory answer, but a 2-year-old can’t be told, and Nathan thinks he knows all the best answers!
We were making a salad for dinner tonight, and I was mixing in some dressing.
Nathan: what’s that?
Me: salad dressing
Nathan: why are you putting that on there?
Me: to make the salad taste nice.
Nathan: why do you make the salad taste nice?
Me: because we like eating it more when it tastes really nice.
Nathan: why do we like eating it more?
Me: because we like eating yummy things.
Nathan: why is it yummy?
Me: I don’t think I can answer that, I don’t know what to tell you.
Nathan (helpfully suggests): just because
