Life, The Universe And My Three-Year-Old.

“Mummy, do you know what the Big Bang was?” Freya asked.

It was 7am and it had been my turn for a lie-in (I know, who’d have though I’d ever call 7am a lie-in?). I had woken up just a few seconds before. As I staggered into the living room my mind was on what to have for breakfast, not trying to explain the creation of the universe.

I actually swore in my head (I’m really grumpy first-thing).

My poor old brain started to crank up, I could almost hear the rusty cogs begin to ever-so-slowly grind together.

She’s been asking some corkers lately…”What is Roman?”, “Where does water come from?” and “Who is Jesus?”

While I’ve had a good stab at them, they can sometimes lack a few (very occasionally essential) facts. She usually asks things at The Worst Possible Moment, such as when I’m driving, in the middle of the supermarket shop or desperately trying to find a public toilet for her. As a result I usually follow up with a “we can look it up when we get home” using my handy set of encyclopedia, which a neighbour gave to me when I was small (and date from 1933). They have been lugged from house to house for several decades and even though some of the information is perhaps a little out of date (and some things obviously don’t feature at all) I love physically being able to flick through the pages and look something up.

Her questions have definitely been getting harder lately (and by that I mean she no longer just asks “why?” to everything) but this, well…

“So…” I started, working out how best to explain it to a three-year-old.

“You know she means the big bang from last night, right? The sound that made her jump,” Mark interrupted, looking at me like I was losing the plot.

All of the air whooshed out of my body.

“Thank goodness.” Although in some respects that was harder to answer because I had no knowledge of this bang.

“Probably a car backfiring,” I guessed.

She seemed happy enough.

~

A quick snapshot of some of the things she’s said to make me laugh/cry a little recently.

“What sort of cake should we make?” I asked her.

“Not a poisoned one,” she answered instantly.

Well. I always set out trying not to poison people with baked goods, honest.

–

Mark and I were chatting in the car recently about something he needed to do for work and he asked me:

“Have you ever written a skills matrix?”

Before I could answer, Freya piped up from the back: “I have but it was a long time ago”.

!

–

Then there is the brutal honesty.

I came out of the bathroom wearing a new red top. I hardly ever buy anything new but I saw this top and thought I would cheer myself up with a little treat.

“I think you look better in your old clothes,” Freya said as soon as she saw me.

Charming.

–

Life is never dull, that’s for sure.