Questions.

Maya asks questions.  All the time.  And I'm sure I've posted before that there are some questions that are easy to answer and some questions I don't know the answer to.

The other day I was looking at a picture book with Maya.  This particular picture was of a hot air balloon and the word was balloon.

Maya pointed at the picture and asked "What is it?"

"A balloon," I answered.

Pointing to the basket below the balloon "What is it?"

"That's a basket," I answered.

Pointing to the picture again, Maya asked "What is it?"

"It's a hot air balloon.  That's the balloon part and hot air is put into the balloon and it floats up and it pulls the basket up and people can ride in the basket."

Maya pauses for a while looking at the picture.  I feel like I'm doing well with my explanations.  I know that it's a picture of a hot air balloon and I know how it works.

Then Maya asks "What's his name?", pointing to a man in the basket.

"Err.. I dunno?"

Identifying colours.

One of Maya's favourite topics at the moment is colours.  She wants to know the names of colours as well as what colour things are.

I was feeling pretty confident about this particular topic.  I am good at naming colours.

"What colour is this?" Maya would ask, pointing to a red car.
"Red", I'd say.

"What colour is this?" Maya would ask, pointing to a green leaf.
"Green", I'd say.

Until Maya asked "What colour is this?", pointing to her nose.
"Oh ummm.. errrrr..  skin coloured??"

Is skin colour a colour?

And then there are all those shades of colours out there that are a combination of tones, like well "greeny, reddy, browny coloured" or "bluey, purpley, black coloured".

Hmm.. identifying colours is harder than I thought.

Whatcha doing?

There are still a lot of things Maya doesn't know or understand about the world.  She regularly asks questions to seek new information.  And currently she is very interested in what I or others around us are 'doing'.  But she will not just ask about new events.  She also asks about things she has seen many times before.  She even asks me what I am doing when it is completely obvious what I am doing.

Now a dinner conversation might go something like this:

Maya: "Whatcha doing?"
Me: "Eating dinner."
A few minutes later.
Maya: "Whatcha doing mummy?"
Me "I'm still eating dinner."
A few minutes later.
Maya "Whatcha doing?"
Me: *sigh*