At five years old, Mateo is right in the middle of the “age of why.” From morning to night, he asks questions. Yesterday, while we were running errands, he began his litany from the back seat of the car.
“Why are tarantulas bigger than spiders?” “Do cows like rain?” “Why can water put out fire?”
My first thought was “I have no idea.” I majored in English in college. Science has never been my strong suit. But I’m proud of Mateo for thinking up such good questions, and I did my best to answer. “The reason water can put out fire has something to do with oxygen. Or no,” I said. “That’s what makes fire burn.”
“What’s ox-y-gen?” Mateo asked. “Is that like the air?”
“Exactly. The truth is I don’t know why water puts out fire. When Daddy gets home, let’s ask him.”
Mateo squirmed in his seat. “What is history, Mom?”
“The story of something that happened in the past.” I looked in the rear view mirror to catch his eyes. “For example, Native Americans lived in this country first and people from another place called Europe sailed over in big ships to live here. That’s history.”
Mateo nodded. He’d heard this story before, when he learned about the pilgrims and the Indians around Thanksgiving. “What is my history?” he asked.
I told him the story he also knew well. “You were born in Guatemala in another lady’s tummy and we adopted you and brought you to California.”
“Why?”
I took a deep breath. In Mateo’s question, there were a thousand others. Did he mean why him? Why us? Why adoption? Why Guatemala?
This is a question Mateo will never stop asking. It’s one I can never stop exploring.
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Great piece, Jessica. And that picture of Mateo is too cute!
He’s got a big personality! Thanks for the comment, Dorothy.