Clio Quotes

Unfortunately, I can never remember to write down the hilarious things Clio says. (If you want a does of hilarious kid quotes, visit my friend Lizzie's blog and scroll on down to November 11: her daughter Laila has a precocious vocabulary and a knack for the literal, and her son Owen simply has a unique perspective on the world). We've been in a major "why" phase for a while, which often ends in an exasperated "because" after explaining the same subject three or four times. Lately, though, Clio hass moved from a highly annoying "why" phase into a somewhat annoying but at least occasionally instructive "what if" phase.

It goes something like this:

Mom, what if you had no mouth?
Well, I guess you'd be in trouble, because you couldn't talk, or eat, or smile.

Well, what if you had a mouth on your elbow?
Then you would have to hold up your arm when you talked, so people could hear you.

What if you had an ear for a mouth?
Then I guess you would have to listen from your face.

The questioning usually goes along a theme, and Clio seems to come up with every possible combination of asking before she exhausts her subject. (I am serving up the abridged versions).

Mom, what if you lived in a house in a tree?
You would live in a tree house.

What if there was a house on a dog's house?
You could call that a dog house. But any house is reallytoo heavy to put on a dog's head, son't you think?

Mom, what if your house had no door?
It would be harder to get in the house, because you would have to come through the window.

Well, what if you had no door AND no windows?
I guess you'd be stuck outside. Or inside, as the case may be.

What if you had no home?

And this is where this line of questioning becomes challenging, because your child thinks she is making up impossible and silly scenarios: how, exactly, do you explain homelessness to a 3 year old? You might tell her that lots of people have no homes, that some of them are cold, that some of them are sad, that sometimes they can get help. You might picture the line of people that you drive by every night on your way home for work, waiting outside Denver's Catholic Mission hoping for a bed for the night. You might tell her that she's very lucky to have such a nice home as this.

And then, your three year old might get all existential on you.

MOM! What if you had nothing?

Yes. What if?