Ow, does it make my brain hurt.
Noah has been asking me questions all week, the kinds of questions that feel a lot more challenging than the ones I got thrown at me during my comprehensive exams. Because at least those questions were limited to a specific field of inquiry. Noah's questions are from all over the place.
Just today he was asking what another word for "superstition" was. It threw me off a bit. I mean, first of all, what eight-year-old child is concerned about synonyms, and why did he need a synonym for that word, anyway? And what would the synonym be?
Tonight we were driving back home from some big excitement--we drove the car through the car wash, and Noah thought it was *just* like a storm--when Noah started asking questions again.
"Mom, how old were you nineteen years ago?"
Oh, frick, I had to count. How old was I now, anyway? Take away ten, then take away nine, and . . . "Seventeen."
"Did you have a boyfriend?"
Hmm, wasn't expecting THAT one. "Yes."
"What was his name? Wayne?"
"No, honey, I didn't even know your daddy then."
"So what was his name?"
Oh, frick. How the heck do I answer this one? It was my senior year of high school and I'd sort of dated several people that year, though it was innocent enough. I began the awful task of counting back. Let's see, I'd broken up with Robert a few days before my seventeenth birthday, so he didn't count, and started dating Joe right before I broke up with Robert (I know, I know, I feel bad about the timing) . . . then I think there was Lee . . . then Joe . . . then Matt and Nicco . . . then Joe . . . then Bill.
Yeah, I wasn't at all ready to explain such teenaged-girl capriciousness to my son, so I picked my two favorites and gave my son their names.
I braced myself for the next question, fearing what he might come up with.
"Did you graduate from high school that year?"
"Yes," I breathed a sigh of relief, happy to have a question about my academic self because that's the realm where I always have the answers.
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