Look it up

Today is one of those days I'm finding it difficult to enjoy parenting. I used to think that that alone made me the worst parent in the universe, but now I know that every parent has days like that and don't pretend you don't. You are a liar if you say you don't and Jesus doesn't like it when you lie. It makes Him cry. And right here at Easter you shouldn't lie and make Jesus cry. It's a holiday all about Him ya know.

That train of thought in that last paragraph? Yeah, the one about Jesus and the crying and lying and stuff? That is how every conversation I've had with my children today has gone - except that is nothing compared to what I've actually endured today. One thought, one question, one statement leads to another and another and eventually a question about the origin of the name Wal*Mart turns into a discussion of which kind of apple is sweeter and (Sam says) Granny bought us apples once that weren't very sweet and Momma made a pie out of 'em and (Kady says)I don't really wike pie 'cept for chocwet pie but (Abby spews with eyes rolling) Mom doesn't make chocolate pies, you dork, because like, only Grammy does that because Mom is no fun. Gaw. All three kids would participate in one humongously, drawn-out sentence which seemingly had no end.

I have had children for ten and a half years and today for the first time - from my ten year old, no less - I got the question, "Why is the sky blue?"

Huh? Seriously. Huh??

I was sitting at a stoplight when she asked and I think there are still the imprints of my fingers in the steering wheel and I might be marginally deaf because of all of the honking that the other Easter Eve shoppers whose kids were driving them nuts were doing. When I pried my fingers from the steering wheel and managed to drive onward I still hadn't answered my child.

Now, here is where not only my ingenuity as a parent tested, but my overall intelligence as well. If she were three, I could answer with, "Because that is how God made it. Isn't it pretty? What other things are blue? Yes, Cinderella's dress is blue! You are so smart!" But she's not three, she's a tween and a simple "Because God made it that way" doesn't hold as much water as it used to. Not that my children are heathens or anything, but they require more substance to an answer now. They want whys and wherefores and real, honest explanations that make sense. That whole "Where did God come from?" issue was discussed at lunch just today. I came to terms with that topic years ago when I realized that I would never figure it out and gave into my faith. Abby and Sam can't grasp it quite yet and faith ain't cuttin' it. Yet. Eventually they'll get it. I hope. If not, then yeah, they'll be heathens.

I am sure that somewhere in my education I learned why the sky is blue. I'm fairly positive it was in Science, probably the Earth kind. I was probably in junior high at the time. I was also probably very hormonally freaked out and boy crazy during that particular lecture and that is why now, at the ripe ol' age of 34, I do not really know why the sky is blue.

When I was a kid and I asked a question of my parents the pat answer was, "Look it up." We had a bookshelf in the dining room full of three different sets of encyclopedias that my parents bought when they found out they were pregnant with me. Oh, the knowledge beheld on those tomes! I did a report in 2nd grade about oranges and got all of the information from the gigantic blue encyclopedia with "O" on the spine. Plucked it right from the second shelf where it had been waiting for my entire 8 years. That was the beginning of my love of those encyclopedias. Now, I was a rather precocious speller from an early age and was given the nickname "Walking Dictionary" because of my penchant for spelling gigantic words and spelling them correctly and always knowing the definition of any obscure word I used in teenage conversation. ("Facetious" made my friend DeLisa giggle. I used it a lot. Because she was. But that is neither here nor there.) But there were some words that I didn't know (*gasp!*) and if I asked my parents, I got the answer, "Look it up." They said they were showing me how to do things myself, be resourceful and self-reliant.

Now I know the truth. They didn't have a clue. Just like I don't.

Initially, my instinctual response for the question of "Momma, why is the sky blue?" was "Look it up" but then remembered that we don't own a set of encyclopedias. So I said what has become my pat parenting answer:

"Google it."