Everybody knows this stage of development. “Why? Why? What? Why?” All day long we get these questions. Evie asks why so much, that it has become a sort of default response to every statement. She says it even when she doesn’t want to know why. We’ve even gotten in the habit of ignoring her first why, because if she really wants to know, she’ll ask again. This saves you from a lot of pointless question answering.

Now lots of times these are questions she really wants to understand, and, of course, lots of times these questions are questions that nobody could ever be able to answer.

Evie: “What time is it?”
Me: “5 o’clock.”
Evie: “Why?”
Me: “…”

She likes to ask things about total strangers like, “What’s that boy’s name?” or “Where is his mommy?” She also asks questions in other strange circumstances. Let me give you some examples.

Evie: “He doesn’t wear a hat.”
Me: “This one doesn’t wear a hat?”
Evie: “Why?”

So, she makes a statement, you repeat it back to her, and she asks you why. Or, another example, she asks you why to something that only she could know:

Me: “You don’t like to eat those ones.”
Evie: “Why?”
Me: “You’d have to ask yourself that.”
Evie: “Why? I was asking myself.”

(Yes, if you ever say ‘you’d have to ask yourself’ she almost always answers this way, out loud)

And lets not forget about “What?” As part of this sort of voracious information gathering, she really hates to miss out on anything, or not understand. If you try having a conversation around her but not include her, you will regret it. She will interrogate you on every aspect she doesn’t understand. Of course, once her questions are satisfied she doesn’t really *care* about the balancing of the check book, but she wants to understand what you are talking about, to be sure she doesn’t care. For example, she frequently asks me what time it is if she sees me looking at my watch, even though the time is essentially meaningless to her.

All in all though, the questions really aren’t as bad as you see on T.V. or whatever. I usually try to answer her as much as I can. And she doesn’t get too frustrated with it, so it’s not that big of a deal. But lets just say there are times where it is a bit trying.

And that’s sort of the point of having a toddler, isn’t it?