On not knowing everything

Zoë talked the entire drive home from Layton on Tuesday evening. I think that mostly she was trying to keep herself awake because she was determined to have her own personal "late night," which we assured her she very much was since it was already hours past her bedtime.

"No!" she insisted. "This isn't just any late night! I'm going to stay up all night long!"

"Oh, then that's called an all-nighter," Uncle Bruce said, "Which is considerably more difficult to pull off than a late night."

"I know!" Zoë said. "That's why I'm going to do it!"

And so she talked the whole drive home. I'm not even sure she had time to breathe she was talking so much. When she ran out of things to say, she started asking me where things came from.

"Where do fences come from?" she asked.

"People build them," I said.

"Where do trucks come from?" she asked.

"People build them, too," I said.

"But then where do they come from? Like how do you get a truck?"

"From the truck store," I said.

This answer satisfied her so I started using "from the __________ store" to answer anything that I didn't feel like thinking up a genuine answer to.


"Where does milk come from?"

"Cows."

"Where do calves come from?"

"Mommy and daddy cows."

"Where do shoes come from?"

"The shoe store."

"Where do pillows come from?"

"The pillow store."

"Where do pants come from?"

"The pants store."

"Where do car seats come from?"

"The car seat store."

"Wow, Mom!" she said. "You answered everything perfectly! How do you even know everything?! That's amazing! I just can't believe that my mom is so smart that she knows absolutely everything in the whole entire planet!"

("Enjoy that while it lasts," my mom quipped from the driver's seat (and don't worry, Mom, it was a very short-lived feeling for her, as you'll see)).

"Where do clouds come from?" she started up her line of questioning again.

"Well, clouds are formed when water vapor in the air cools and condenses to form tiny water droplets that gather together in the sky."

"That?" Zoë said, "Is ridiculous!"

"Ridiculous...but true."

"There's no water in the air!" she objected. "Otherwise how do we breathe? You always say to blow out under water and take a breath when my face is out of the water because that's where the air is, Mom. Not water. There's a big difference. Water. Air. See?"

"Good point," I said. "But, nonetheless, water can evaporate, which means it turns from a liquid state to a gas state, and that's when it goes into the air and when enough of it collects in the air it forms a cloud and when enough water droplets collect in a cloud then it starts to rain. You've seen it rain, right? Rain is water falling through the sky. So it's not all as cut and dry as you think..."

"Huh," she said. "I still think you're a tiny bit wrong."

"You're welcome to think that," I said.

"Mom?" she asked.

"Yes?"

"Where do umbrellas come from?"

"The umbrella store," I sighed.

"I'm so lucky you know so much!" she said. "Where do..."

*****

On Wednesday morning Andrew stayed home with Zoë and I headed back up north with my mom, Auntie Arlene, and Auntie Josie to attend Margaret's funeral. It's the end of the school year so, naturally, there are a billion things to remember. It's crunch time!

"Oh, and Rachel needs a scripture about missionary work for tonight and Miriam needs a Family Search account, and Zoë has her preschool graduation, so don't forget to go to that...." I listed things off as I was frantically putting together a diaper bag.

Everything went off without a hitch, as I knew it would, except for one thing: I mixed up preschool graduation. So at ten o'clock in the morning I got a text from Andrew.

"What do I do if no one is here?" he wanted to know.

The answer to that was that I simply didn't know. But he soon found out that preschool graduation was on Thursday, not Wednesday, and that Zoë was currently missing her very last preschool class.

Oops.

It wasn't really a cause for concern, however, because Zoë was elated.

"Can you believe Mom was wrong about something?" Zoë reportedly sang the whole way home. "She really mixed up those dates! I can't believe she would make a mistake like that. This is amazing! My mom was wrong!"

She brought it up to Andrew several times over the course of the day and was sure to rub it in my face when I arrived home that evening. But, you know what? I think I'd rather my children learn young that I'm a fallible person, so I'm okay with that.