Who what when why

Parker's been on a question asking kick lately.

What's under houses? What do squirrels eat? Why do the leaves fall off trees? Why do trees have leaves?

Last night at bedtime he asked me what happens to food when we eat it. I spent an extra ten minutes in his room trying to explain digestion and nutrients in a way a 3 year old would understand. I said we chew up our food and it goes down into our tummy's where it gets all mashed up and squished and the nutrients, or stuff our body needs to work, get into our blood and it takes it to where it needs to go. It takes it to our brain to make us smarter, or our muscles to make us stronger, or our eyes to make us see better, etc. Then after the good stuff is out of the food, we poop out the stuff we don't need.

Once he sort of understood that, he moved onto what happens when we eat yucky stuff. I said if we eat bad food or stuff that isn't food, we get sick and either throw it up, poop it out, or if it gets stuck we have to go to the doctor and that's no fun. So that led into an array of questions like "What if we eat wood?" "What happens when we eat candy?" "What happens when we eat hotdogs?"

His questions are never ending, but I love it. I know he's just soaking that information in and if I don't know something I make sure not to just make something up. He deserves honest answers and will learn far more if he can trust us to tell him the truth. My little sponge is growing up and getting smart :)