Why?

Watching movies with a 4 year old is really trying.

Why??

Because of all the questions I have to answer. All questions are 'why?' questions.

The little one, and I too, have watched Mulan only about (according to Arun) 29,832 times over the last 2 years. She knows all the songs, knows all the characters, and even knows some of the dialogs.

So far so good?? Well, now lets get to the real fun.

Understand first that my daughter has recently grown into the "why?" stage. So as we watch, someone refers to the villain as 'Shan-Yu'. "Shan-Yu??" she asks in horror. "Shouldn't he have said 'Mr. Shan-Yu' or 'Shan-Yu-san'??" That shows how well we're drilled her in her P's and Q's.

Mulan cuts off her hair, and heads off to battle. "Why is she playing with a knife? Doesn't she know that it's dangerous?"

"Why is Mulan taking a bath at night? Won't she get a fever or catch a cold?"
"Why is Mulan going swimming at night?"
"Why did Capt. Lee take off his shirt?"

... and so on and so forth. Halfway through, my brain shut down, after thinking up easy-to-please answers.

After a while, answering these with "Why do you think that happened?" failed. Very miserably. The first time she looked at me and said, "I want amma to tell me why." When she saw that I took too long to think up an answer, she looked at me asked, "I think amma doesn't knows why." So much for being the all-knowing parent.

But it's my fault. I didn't see it coming. All the obvious signals went off a few months ago, and I ignored them. Recently we saw some shots from Superman Returns on telly, and she asked me, "Why is Superman wearing red undies over his pants?" Before I could recover from a choking fit, she answered, "Didn't his mummy teach him to wear it properly?"

Why me??