The Why Phase

”Are you going to tell her?” My daughter texted me last night when she noticed a funny Facebook post from my cousin, complaining about the constant talking from her toddler.
“It NEVER stops” I posted, which was certainly true for my daughter. Even now, when she comes home it takes me a while to re-adjust to the constant noise. My daughter, being self-aware, told my cousin that the Long Suffering Husband and I coped by blocking it out. My cousin asked for tips on how to do that and I said that it just happens.

My cousin may be lucky. She may not have produced a true talker; someone who will grow up to talk, or write (because writing is only talking on the page) for a living. It might just be the ‘why phase’.

When my daughter was two, we thought it was the ‘why phase’, which didn’t bother me. I am someone who has never quite grown out of this phase. (Why is the North Pole currently warmer than here? Is it the beginning of the end?) When my children were small I didn’t shy away from their questions and was always prepared to look things up. I had a notebook of things to check when I next went to the library. Isn’t it wonderful now that we all have an encyclopaedia in our pockets? I thought of the phase as a privilege. How often do you get to build a brain? Some questions were trickier than others. My son asked mathematical questions that I had to look up while my daughter’s tricky questions were more often to do with people and people are tricky.

Not every parent enjoys this time. My mum says that she used to wish she had a buggy that faced the other way. Some parents use a dummy or pretend to talk into their mobile phone when it’s all getting too much. The LSH’s preferred method was to tune out. Maybe he learnt how to do it with me because it’s a method he still uses. I can spot it when his replies fall into a regular pattern of, “Hmmm”s. The trick is to look like you are listening but not actually hear a single word that is said. I learnt quickly from him once it became clear, at about eight, that my daughter was a ‘true talker’ and didn’t actually need anyone to listen. Alright, I didn’t learn that quickly and I’m still not as skilled as he is. I remember now, that it didn’t just happen. I had to work at it.

The worst thing about the ‘why phase’ is when you are unprepared for it. This phase can make you feel stupid. You ask yourself, “How can I have reached the age of thirty and not no why the sky is blue?” You wonder whether it is best to make up an answer of resort to, “It just is,” or “Because I said so.”

Then there is the problem of time and place. Everyone is time poor, these days and so it must be even harder to meet a two year old’s brain programming phase. They follow you everywhere, asking questions that would be tricky, even if you weren’t on the toilet. I used to love reading the Mrs Large picture book, where the Mummy elephant tries to get a few minutes peace from her toddler in the bath. It was a warning to forget the whole idea. Questions can be embarrassing if they are said in front of people. My mum still cringes at the memory of me wanting to know about a large port-wine birthmark on the face of a man on a train. The temptation to stop them in these situations is huge but they are unstoppable, like a juggernaut with failing breaks about to plough into a line of stationary traffic. Sometimes, you are pleasantly surprised, as a friend of mine once was.
She was on holiday with her daughter in Cape Town. (That’s not relevant but I just wanted you to know that I once had friends who took exotic holidays). They were in the pool, after a long day of questions about elephant sex and why anyone would want a Tiger to come to tea when an extremely large lady got in.
My friend held her breath as she watched her daughter’s eyes widen to the size of saucers and trace the woman’s every step. As the woman got in and waves of swimming pool water splashed over the side, my friend struggled to recall any facts about the Archimedes principal that might deflect from the real question she thought her daughter might ask. Toddlers never ask, “Mummy, why is that lady so fat?” in a quiet voice.
“MUUUUUMMMMMMYYYYY!” her daughter yelled
She braved herself, pulling her shoulders up to her ears, as if that would be some kind of protection.
“WHY....”
“Oh no,” she thought, “this is unavoidable.”
“DOES THAT..”
She considered scooping up her daughter and running as fast as her flip flops would take her.
“LADY HAVE....”
She prayed for the first time in her life, “Please God, a hurricane, earthquake, tidal wave. Anything you’ve got right now would be helpful.”
“SUCH A....”
She was beginning to feel faint. Black spots were floating before her eyes.
“B...”
A small amount of vomit appeared in her throat.
“BEAUTIFUL SWIMMING COSTUME.”
There was a collective sigh as the whole pool breathed again. The lady beamed.

The best advice I could have given my cousin, though, was to enjoy every moment because the ‘why phase’ will be gone soon and she’ll miss it. Even if she has a ‘true talker’ and the chatter doesn’t stop until she leaves home she should make the most of it because soon the house is quiet and she’ll have to have Radio 4 on all day just to hear talking.