Sometimes when my kids ask questions I don’t know the correct answers to, I just make them up.
I do this when I know there are no experts within ear shot and have left the kids with quite a myriad of responses when it comes to our solar system, how a bill becomes a law and how they get the caramilk inside the Caramilk bar.
By the time their less-than-factual tales are repeated, it will be a teacher’s problem to work out and I’ll be at the grocery store.
But I hate when they ask me questions most human adults should know the answers to, in front of human adults who do know the answers and who might be able to tell the kids, (spoiler alert) your Mother was never an astronaut, nor was she even an earth sciences enthusiast and no “splashing a blanket” on someone doesn’t even begin to make sense.
So last night when Ellie asked in front of a crowd, “Mommy, can you live with just a head and no body?”
I was quick to tell her that the bodiless head scenario seemed unlikely to produce any survivors.
“Well what if you had a head and a vein connecting it to a heart? Could you survive then?”
Me: I don’t think so. I think you need a few more organs…now run along…run along.
Ellie: Like what organs specifically do you need to survive? Like a head, a heart and a stomach? Do you NEED a stomach to survive?
Run Ellie! Did you see the stick I threw way over by that tree?
I bet she doesn’t know the skin is the largest organ. She’s obviously never played Trivial Pursuit.
The truth is I don’t know which of our many vital organs we require to survive. Maybe some of our vital organs can be man-made. I know we’re into pigs hearts now. Aren’t we?
And I know the word “vital” implies they are important but it remains a mystery to me which organs fall under that category.
Cold sweat. I know she’s going to ask how many stars there are in the solar system, if we’re closer to the sun or the moon, if Venus was his name.
Ellie: What if you had a brain, a heart, a stomach and a bum.
What if the Lion had courage?
Oh God. She’s going to ask if you could survive the stomach/bum combo and while this sounds like a person I would totally dig meeting because they must have been through quite a lot and would be an amazing dinner party guest, I wasn’t willing to risk saying this person could or could not exist.
Ellie: If you had a brain, heart, stomach and bum….
Me: Yes……
Ellie: How would you put on your pants?
