An idle mind....is something we don't get much around here.

This morning on the way to music class Liam wanted to know if other preschool classes made "snow trees."  Once I found out that a snow tree is a tree that kids have thrown snow at (seems obvious, but several other posibilities had presented themselves to my mind) I told him I thought they probably had.  "Why?"  he asks, ever suspicious it seems of my simple, confident answers.
"Well, lots of kids have snow and lots of kids have trees."
"Everyone has snow."
"Well, not everyone." (Why I felt it necessary to introduce this detail is now a mystery to me.  It seems harmless at the moment, but....)
"Why not?"
"Well [I say this a lot I need a chance to think but have to let him know I'm going to say something so he doesn't keep asking over and over again] some places are too hot and some are too dry."
"Like the desert.  Why doesn't it snow.... How do they make freezers in the desert?"
You see what I started here.  We are now veering dangerously into territory I know nothing about.
"Well...Freezers are run by motors that use electricity."
"How is electricity made?"

Mercifully we had arrived at the school where his music class is held by this time and he was distracted by the presence of a truck with pictures of milk on it ("Oh, it's a dairy truck.  It says 'dairy' on it."  Absolutely true and no time for follow-up by me on how he figured that out.)  It's not that I mind telling him that I just don't know something, but the truth is that sometimes I know something about the subject, but just feel too tired or distracted to try to figure out how to explain it and deal with the stream of related questions that will inevitably follow.  Do you have any idea how many different aspects of life we just let flow by, on an average day, without considering why they happen or where they come from or how our lives would be different if they didn't happen?  Lots.  Take it from me.

On the way to preschool he wanted to know how they got all the radio stations into cars when they make them.  I got through that one just by telling him that cars have radios that are designed to pick up all the radio stations.  I think that the only reason I didn't end up in the confusing world of radio waves and broadcast towers is that he started thinking about our (usually) yearly trips to New Hampshire and how on long trips like that we listen to CDs because the music on the radio gets "scratchy."  And then he was on to remembering sleeping in the tent and how we don't have much supper - which turned out on further discussion to mean breakfast ("Daddy had pieces of bread with syrup and I had some too.")

So I dropped him off at preschool and now for three hours they can deal with his questions.  Although from what I've seen and heard he's usually so busy at preschool that he asks fewer questions.  Actually I'm very grateful to them for filling him with lots of information so that he seems to spend some time mulling it over before coming up with his next round of interrogation...I mean questions.