Not Curious

For the past couple of months, Miles’ standard rejoinder to questions about why he just did something has been “Because I’m curious.” Example: “Miles, it seems like you spilled that orange juice on purpose. Why did you do that?” “Because I’m curious.” Yesterday I finally managed to get an alternate response out of him.

“Miles, what would you like to have for dinner?”

“Daddy, I want to have breakfast for dinner!”

“OK, what would you like to have for breakfast?”

“Fish!”

“Have you had fish before? Do you like fish?”

“No, Daddy.”

“Then how do you know you don’t like it?”

“Because I’m curious.”

“But if you’re curious then it means you like to try new things.”

[pause]

“I mean because I’m NOT curious, Daddy.”

Music: Sugarcubes :: Birthday

4 Replies to “Not Curious”

  1. Nathan, two weeks from 2 1/2, is in the question stage – not so much because he’s curious, but because he knows that questions are high-priority interrupts. *grin* He’ll ask “What’s this?” or “Why?” of things that he already knows and, when we turn it around with a “what/why do you think?”, will answer with “I dunno!”

    Not to say that he isn’t curious – but it’s pretty easy to note that the questions decrease when he’s getting attention, and increase dramatically in frequency and intensity when his mom and I are having grown-up talk. :) Interesting to see how quickly they learn language tokens that serve certain purposes:

    General interrogative – interrupts parent and turns attention to me.
    “I dunno.” – ends line of questioning, maybe we can play now!
    “Why?” – continue the question game!

    *grin*

  2. Best answer:

    “If you’re not curious, why do you keep asking questions?”

    This is why (one of the many reasons) I’m not allowed to breed.

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