If the Name Fits...

When I was young, my siblings and I used to ask The Great Omnipotent One all sorts of questions. I can’t even remember them all, but if they were relevant, he would answer, but if they were stupid, then he would look at us and say, “What do I look like to you, the answer man?”

Now as a parent, I am inundated with questions from my boys. Inundated. Sometimes I feel like I’m dodging bullets from a machine gun. The questions can come so quickly that I have been known to put both hands over my ears, stamp a foot and say, ‘Just Stop!’ They can truly throw me into sensory overload.

Most of the questions, I can give a pretty good answer to. I know a fair amount about science and math (damn, hopefully since I majored in it), and I’m fairly well read, and I am analytical so I can usually deduce a reasonable answer, but MY favorite thing to say now when they ask me a question that is completely ridiculous and there is NO way of my knowing the answer, is “AND WHY would I know that?” (It’s obscure stuff like, ‘Why wasn’t my teacher in class today?’ to which my reply would be “I have no clue. Why would I know that?”)

However, I NEVER use that response to questions that should have concrete answers, but just require a little research. Herein is the problem. My eldest reads so much, he comes up with things I truly cannot even begin to answer. Last year, the question was related to some deep science that I am sure I studied, but the information refused to meld to my brain, so since we were in my car, I said, “Wait, let me call Big Daddy” (that’s what they call TGOO) and sure enough TGOO knew the answer. So, now, my boys think that TGOO knows the answers to everything. Heh.

Tonight we’re in the car, my son is reading this encyclopedia he got from Santa on North American Reptiles and Mammals (Santa’s big mistake is buying him crap like that) and I get, “hey Mom, what’s oviparous?”

I get to a stop light and break out a pen, having him spell it thinking, “Who in the hell drives around having a 9 year old ask about words like oviparous?” Between having him read me the passage and seeing the ‘ovi’ part of the word, I gather it has something to do with reproduction and snakes, and I tell him that, but then explain we’ll have to wait until we get home to look it up.

His response to me was, “Why don’t you just call Big Daddy instead?”

Heh. I did. I left a message. Something along the lines of “Your grandson wanted me to call you to ask you for the definition of the word oviparous, and since you know everything, you can just leave a message on my voice mail.”

You know what the scary thing is? He probably frickin’ knows the definition without looking it up.