The Answer to Everything

Kyra is an inquisitive soul. Kailey, not so much. Kyra has a hunger for learning and wants to know ev-er-y-thing. Her favorite follow up question is "Why?", with "How come?" as a close second. Her hunger for knowledge is a constant reminder of just how much I DON'T know about stuff in general, and most of the time that I attempt to give thorough answers to her barrage of questioning I end up sounding like a complete moron. For example, here's a question from this afternoon:

"Daddy, are there trees that touch the sky?"

OK, immediately I am doomed from the start. What exactly does she mean by "touch the sky"? These are the type of things I need to filter from the get-go in order to give a thoughtful, semi-intelligent answer. Oh, and I'm driving. Being a man means that multitasking is not my forte. "We-ell, there are these trees that are called Redwoods. They're really big, tall, big trees that go way up into the sky. I think they're the tallest trees in the world. There's a forest of them in California. Did I mention that they were big?"

"Do they 'touch the sky?'"

"Y-yeah...I guess so."

pregnant pause

"Maybe you should Google it."

She's six. And I'd be lying if I told you that it didn't hurt a little bit to have a six year-old tell you to Google something in order to come up with a satisfactory answer to her questions. What's worse is this has become Kyra's default response to ANY of my answers. I've heard "Maybe you should Google it" no fewer than a half-a-dozen times in the past 24 hours. I'm telling you, my confidence is shot! Never have I felt so much pressure to give a satisfying answer to a little kid. Telling me to Google something is the equivalent of saying, "Daddy, you're so full of crap that I need to pull up my boots!"

I wanted to say something like, "Oh yeah? Well if you're so smart why don't YOU Google 'Trees that touch the sky' and see what kind of 'satisfactory' answers YOU find. And don't you pull that but-Daddy-I'm-just-learning-to-read baloney on me either." But being the semi-mature adult that I am, I refrained. Instead, I Googled "Trees that touch the sky" just to see what brilliant material I would find. Suffice it to say that I'm quite satisfied with my big, tall Redwood tree answer. Perhaps one day Kyra will come to appreciate my brilliance. Or perhaps her teenage perception of her father as an idiot set in a little early.