Raising Mr. Curiosity

He doesn’t care that I’m in the middle of reading as he shoves a marker and yet another piece of paper on top of my open book.

It’s the 4th ‘Can you draw this?’ request of the morning, and it’s only 8:05 a.m.

“Mom! I want to learn about pterodactyls. How did they die? Can you draw one?”

Later that day we read a book about bats. What followed was, “Do bats sleep at night? Why do they sleep upside down? I drew some bats, can I hang them on my bed? I need to hang them upside down… Do we have more tape?

For the record, we never have enough tape.

“Why does my body make blood?” He asked while my hands were busy rinsing and scrubbing out the grass stains on unfortunately NOT a green pair of pants. I was doing laundry, my brain space was far from blood research.

But as I dried my hands I remembered I had grabbed that cartoon Dracula book off the information shelves at the library a few days back. I had the tool to answer all of his curious questions stuffed in the back of our book box.

A few moments later we were snuggled up on the couch reading about blood vessels, arteries, platelets, and the heart, all intertwined with a snappy little tale of a comedic Count Dracula.

He was happy. His curiosity had been sufficiently satisfied. For now.

He asks so many questions, just like his big brothers did when they were his age. And I can either fuel it or squelch it with my response to him. I’ve chosen to try my absolute hardest, even when I’m a little bit questioned out, to help him throw gasoline on the fire of wonder burning inside of him.

“How do I draw a number 5?” He says, seconds after mastering the number 8 which he declared to be simply a snowman with no head.

“How do I become a chef? I want to become a cooker. Am I mixing it the right way?” He asks while stirring clockwise. There’s no wrong way to mix an egg friends, but this little man wanted to be sure he was following ‘cookery protocol.’

“Why are you drawing on your eyes?!” He gasps as I’m midway through applying eyeliner. “Do you need to do that?” is his follow up, making me question my whole philosophy on the point of makeup application.

How does God live inside my heart? Like does he live up here?” He asks pointing to his chest, “Or down here?” He says pointing to his tummy.

“Mom, when do you shave your beard? I never see YOU shave your beard.” Now would be an appropriate time to add that there is an entirely separate category of questions for the only lady in a house full of boys…

Questions… So many questions.

Sometimes I don’t know the answer to his questions. And it’s at that point that we just have to wonder for awhile.

Wonder, that delightful little space between a question and an answer… and the very thing that fuels Mr. Curiosity.