Boy of 1000 Questions

One of the things that is both endearing and maddening about Sam is his propensity for asking questions. That boy can, I kid you not, ask hundreds of questions in the course of an hour. The nice thing about these questions is that they give us an idea about what Sam is thinking about at any given time. The frustrating thing is the fact that they are not conversation-starter questions, but are instead of the yes/no variety and come fast and furious. For example:

Liz: C'mon Sam, let's get your coat on.

Sam: I'm going to put my coat on?

Liz: Yep.

Sam: We're going to go to the store?

Liz: No, we're going to a restaurant.

Sam: We're going to a restaurant?

Liz: Yep.

Sam: We're going to a restaurant in the car?

Liz: Yep.

Sam: We're going in the car?

Liz: Yep, we're going in the car.

Sam: Daddy's coming too?

Liz: Yep, Daddy and Fiona are both coming.

Sam: Fiona's coming too?

Liz: Yep, Fiona is coming too.

Sam: She's going to ride in her little seat?

Liz: Yes, see, I've got her in her car seat.

Sam: She's going to look out the window?

And so on... I mean, it's cute and can be really funny at times, but at the end of the day, when you're on question #4031, a person can get a bit exhausted by the whole Q&A deal. On Friday, I found myself feeling a bit tired out and frazzled and finally replied to one of Sam's questions with a silly but exasperated "YES!!!!". Sam paused in his play, looked up at me and admonished "Don't talk like that Mumma!" At which point I felt like a jerk. Apparently he'd done the same thing to Chris the day before too, so now we both feel like less than stellar parents. On the other hand though, Sam does have to learn at some point that everyone has their limits, right? Maybe?

In any event, our moments of frustration have not stifled his inquisitive nature. It's 1pm on Sunday afternoon and he's probably already asked 100 questions, and he's having a slow, quiet day today.

Epilogue: There is one type of question that has always been and will always be maddening. Sam will frequently say to us "what's that?" If we're lucky, he'll gesture vaguely off into the distance, but usually he gives no indication as to what he is inquiring about. Asking follow-up questions such as "what is what?" or "what are you talking about?" or "show me?" gets you nowhere, he'll just keep repeating "what's that?" until something can be done to distract him.