Where'd that come from?

"Where'd that come from?"  It is a question I hear no less than 30 times a day during Sofia's waking hours.  When she asks, it may or may not be obvious about what she is inquiring.  She may or may not be pointing to the object in question.  The object may or may not be something she has seen before; often, it is. Frequently, the object is something about which that very question has already been asked - multiple times.  "Where'd that come from?"  "Where'd that come from?"  "Where'd that come from?"  It all makes me wonder sometimes, "where'd my sanity go?"

All joking aside, Sofia is a very curious child, and I adore that about her.  Curiosity is such a basic, intrinsic part of childhood, and one of the great joys of parenthood is watching your child discover the world through wide, bright eyes.  Sofia seems to exercise her curiosity to the extreme, and at times, it does wear on my patience.  Initially, after being asked and then answering "where'd that come from?" several times in a row about the very same item, I would just ignore the subsequent inquiries.  If ignoring a toddler during a tantrum is a good way to get the tantrum to stop, maybe the same would work for a toddler conducting a one-question interrogation?  No.  Funnily enough, that's not how it worked.  So instead of ignoring the question, if I heard it more than three times, I would answer her by turning the tables and asking her, "where'd that come from?"  More often than not, she would answer me, repeating back what I had just told her.  But it didn't stop her from asking again.

I came to realize that perhaps the question Sofia was asking wasn't really the one to which she wanted an answer, maybe not all of the time.  Sure, when we're in the car and she peers out the window and inquires about a bird, another vehicle, or a pedestrian, she likely wants to know where it came from, so I will answer accordingly.  But when we're in the grocery store and she points to a pomegranate or a spaghetti squash, something with which she is not familiar, rather than tell her where it came from, I will tell her what the item is.  Nine times out of ten, she will not again ask where that particular item came from - she has her answer.  For as many words as Sofia has in her vocabulary, she does not yet seem to be able to string together "what's that?"  Another reminder that this tiny little fireball really is still a little girl, albeit a precocious one.
 
Well-intentioned people always like to warn parents of toddlers to beware the whys, the neverending whys.  I myself have received my fair share of those warnings.  And when I hear one, I smile and nod politely, all the while welcoming that new challenge.  Why?  Because it is a rite of passage.  Because it will mark a new milestone in Sofia's life.  And - YES - because it'll give me a break from the wheres.  But mostly because it will offer me even more chances to teach my girl about the world, to help her to understand how things work, grow, play, interact, break, begin, end, to encourage her to think and wonder and question her surroundings, to brighten her beautiful brown eyes even more.  How could I grow tired of that?