It is a moment I have been dreading for quite some time now - the time when Little Miss starts asking the obvious pertinent question that will eventually drive both Wife and I insane, ‘Why?’.

Not just once or twice, not just in context, but repeatedly and incessantly. The answer to any question is currently being met with a further question leading to conversations that both don’t end and go no where. It is like torture, slow, constant, never ending, mind numbing, psychological torture.  

I know I am prone to exaggeration, but I genuinely believe I am going to have a complete and utter breakdown over this. One day Wife will come in to find me rocking back and forth in the corner mumbling non sequitors as a toddler stands beside me going ‘Why?’, ‘why?’, ‘why?’ in response to my every utterance.

I don’t mind the question itself, it shows a healthy curiosity when it comes to the world around Little Miss, it is just the relentlessness of it that is daunting.

I am also struggling with the reality that I don’t have all the answers. I always knew that the time would come when Little Miss would discover that Daddy was neither bright, nor the strongest man in the world (the other fallacy regarding our fathers we must face up to one day). I just really thought I would get through the toddler years intact (oh, and I thought it would my physical failings that would be discovered first). But I am afraid my lack of answers to the constant questioning must surely be tipping off those around me that perhaps I’m not the superman that our toddler tends to believe their father is.

Even if I did know the suitable answers to each of the questions - which I obviously don’t - it is the fact that every answer that I give is just thrown back at me for further detailed explanation and examination, and it is hard to come up with answers to questions, about answers to questions, about answers to questions etc.

And some of those questions are getting more and more esoteric all the time ,the longer an interrogation lasts the more obscure the questioning becomes. A simple exchange starts with ‘Daddy likes to give you big hugs too’ somehow ends up with me trying to explain the concept of eternal unconditional love to a toddler, and not in general terms but in extreme detail about how much I love her, how much mummy loves her, and more importantly why this is the case. After about forty minutes of coming up with new details as to what it is about her that causes us to love her more and more each day, the well begins to run dry (I hope she didn’t interpret that as us not actually loving her completely as we do just because I ran out of reasons).

I, like most parents, swore that we would never give the answer to a question that so many of our parents gave us when we were growing up, the ubiquitous ‘Because’. But I know it is coming, it is only a matter of time, and how do I know this? Because……

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