“But Mama, how is it possible that I have brown eyes when you have green eyes?”

“Wait…what is KY Jelly and why is it in Bubbie’s library?”

“But what exactly is a tampon used for?”

“Can you please explain what “sour grapes” means?”

“Irony? What’s that?”

“Wheels look like they are spinning the wrong way. Don’t they?”

“Jewish people can’t get tattoos?”

“Who decided to add SILENT LETTERS to English? Doesn’t that just make it harder to learn?”

Gone are the days of the constant WHYs.

Why is the sky blue? Why does red mean stop? Why do you have to move backwards when you get a four in Sorry!? Why do I have to wear pants? But how do babies get out? But why are Uncle Jesse’s pants so tight?

As irritating as those frequent questions were, the answers were always simple. It just is. It just does. You just do. Ask your Auntie Sharon and she can show you her c-section scars. That’s just how they dressed in the 80s. My children—as toddlers—had Dory-from=Nemo-esque attention spans. It was really easy to produce a canned answer because before they even heard the response, they were on to the next question.

But now, well, the questions are trickier and the attention spans are longer.

“Well, baby, sour grapes is, like, you know, when you lose and you are sad.I think it’s from Aesop’s Fables, maybe. Ozzy was blindsided and now he’s feeling bad and embarrassed. Or something.”

“Huh?”

“Well, it’s like after you lose or you are disappointed, and then you know, like, how you storm off or get huffy or whatever? That’s sour grapes. Ozzy has sour grapes and is kind of being a big baby right now.”

“That makes absolutely no sense.”

“Sigh. I know. It really doesn’t.”

“What does being upset have to do with grapes? Why couldn’t you just call it disappointed?”

“I don’t know, JoshJosh. It’s an expression. I’m pretty sure there was an animal involved and he really wanted grapes and when he got them they weren’t ripe. Or something.”

“It’s kind of a dumb expression.”

“It is, indeed.”

“I’m going to google it.”

“THANK GOD.”

“Google is smarter than you are.”

“I might end up with sour grapes after this conversation…”

Nothing makes me feel dumber than my children.

It’s really hard to hold any clout with my short people when I tell them that I know what they are talking about, but I can’t describe it in words. Irony? Um, irony is when something is ironic? I know, for sure, 100% that everything in the Alanis Morissette song is definitely NOT ironic and I’m pretty sure they talk about it in that movie Con Air…and in Reality Bites. There is shame in telling your kids to consult Google because you just don’t have the words.

It’s also not the first time I name dropped Alanis Morissette to try to avoid answering tough questions.

Sigh. Maybe we just need to bring back the WHYs.

Because when they asked why on earth I decided to chop a whole lot of inches (6+) off of my hair, instead of going into specifics about how is was too heavy and it needed to be cleaned up and maybe it was time for a little change and I was losing too much hair in the shower and

I can just give them a “I JUST DID” and call it a day.