And then there are Fiona's probing questions. "Why?" is the question of the moment. Sometimes she seems to say it just to have something to say; she'll string them together one after the other in an endless, occasionally frustrating barrage.
Other times, she just seems to want to get to the bottom of things. I wrote that she'd wondered about HOW Rowan was born, but the other day she said, "WHY'D the baby get in there?" Huh. I suppose that's on par with "How are babies made?" but I wasn't expecting that question for a few years. That's a really smart question. So I explained that while chickens lay eggs and then the babies hatch out, with mommies the egg turns into a baby while it's still inside. She seemed satisfied with that answer.
For a while, we were watching lots of what we call "animal shows" -- David Attenborough BBC nature programs. Fiona loved them and we enjoyed them, too, and we figured they were educational so it was a win-win-win. But conversations became a little odd, with Fiona saying things like, "The shark died and he was on the sand and the other animals ate him." And there was lots of interrupted sleep -- not just not sleeping but crying and screaming in her sleep. It makes sense, really. If you watch from a 3-year-old's perspective, you realize that there's an awful lot of hunting/killing and mating in these shows -- appropriate for a nature show, obviously, but sometimes it gets pretty graphic. So no more David Attenborough until Fiona's a little older. Lesson learned.