Tough Questions

It's finally happened.

I knew this phase would come eventually and I thought I would be ready for it.

Amelie has been asking the tough questions. See, I always thought I had a creative idea for handling this. Take my plan for the classic "where do babies come from" question:

Amelie: Daddy, where do babies come from?

Daddy: Well sweetie, it all started back in the primordial soup, somewhere around 4 billion years ago. No one's quite sure, but some theorize that lightning struck a strategic combination of chemicals and life began. It didn't always work at first, see, and eventually over thousands and millions and billions of years, these little creatures developed what's called mitosis. That's when cells....

Amelie: (Sigh) Nevermind...

See, crisis averted. That was my plan at least.

But it just didn't work out that way. Here's a sampling of a few of the tougher ones of late:

Amelie: Daddy, if you're bad, the police officers will shoot you, right?

Daddy: What!? Uh, no. I mean, well, uh, it depends. I mean, no they shouldn't shoot you. They're not supposed to shoot you unless, like, you shoot them... or you're black or a G8 protestor or something... You're not going to shoot a police officer, right kiddo?

But, police are nice sweetie, very nice. They, like, are here to help and stuff.

Or here's a fun one from when we were on a family walk and we happened across a cemetery with flowers by the headstones.

Amelie: I want to smell the flowers!

Dominique: No.... I don't think you should smell those flowers.

Amelie: Why? I want to smell the flowers.

Dominique: It's, uh, because, you know, those people are dead and those flowers aren't for smelling, they're for the dead people. See, it's like they're not here anymore. They just have those stones there so people will remember them.

Amelie: (Looks at Dominique intently, actually listening for once).

Dominique: Uh.... See, people just, you know, go away and, uh, we don't want to forget them (rambling incoherently, panicked, hoping Amie will just come to the end of her attention span, but she doesn't).

Or here's one that arose because Amie put on a jacket she was wearing the last time we took a plane. The jacket had the Delta "wings" pinned to it.

Daddy: Oh, look! Your wings. You know, when I was a little boy, I got wings too! Back in those days, they let the kids go in the cockpit with the pilots and look around at all the buttons and knobs and gauges and stuff. It was really cool! But they don't do that anymore (to myself) because of 9/11 and everything.

Amelie: What's that?

Daddy: What?

Amelie: 9/11.

Daddy: Oh, it's a long story (forgetting that Amelie loves stories).

Amelie: Tell it!

Daddy: Aww man....

The moral of the story: You're never really prepared. The questions just blindside you and you'll be totally caught off guard.  Please, help me. What random questions did your kid ask you that you had no answer for? The more I'm prepared, maybe I can avoid a potential disaster.

Thanks!

-Tom