the dawn of reason

Behold the ponytail!



Iris takes after my side of the family in her slowness to sprout a full head of hair, but now that she has just enough to gather into a tiny tail on the top of her head with one of those teensy-weensy rubber bands that remind me of the ones I used to wear with my braces, she asks for one every day.

She has also begun asking "Why?" about everything, including her hairstyle.

"Why I have ponytail?"

"Because you asked for one, so we gave you one."

"Why I asked for one?"

"I think because Anya and Amanda have ponytails, and you would like your hair to look like theirs."

"Why Anya and 'Manda have ponytails?"

And so on. Gone are the days when we could read her a book in the time it takes to simply recite the text. Now it takes us an hour to get through Madeline because we have to reveal the mysteries of every figure of speech, cause for tears, and quaint French medical custom in answer to her constant queries: "Why they break their bread? Why they were very sad? Why the man have a broken leg? Why she say 'pooh-pooh'? Why she have scar on her stomach? Why they said 'Boo-hoo'?"

And those are the easy questions. This morning we were talking about our friend's pet duck, which lays an egg every day, and whose eggs the friend gathers and gives us.

"Why he give us the duck's eggs?"

"Because his family doesn't want to keep the eggs themselves, so they give them to us instead of throwing them away."

"Why they don't want them?"

Having wondered this ourselves, J and I both answer, "We don't know!"

Iris, pouting and sincerely disappointed: "But I want know it!"

Yes, darling, so do we, but there are some things we will never understand, like where the stomach bug came from that Mama got last week, and why a totally punk rock guy like Bill married a woman who rejects eggs not laid by factory-farm chickens and packed in a supermarket carton.

Let's read Madeline again.