I’m in the bathroom, doing my makeup, trying to get ready for work. #5 runs in.
#5: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
He’s never asked this before.
Me: Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Nobody knows.
#5: Nobody?
Me: Nobody.
#5: Really.
I look at him. He’s totally channeling all of his teen sisters right now and has the sarcasm and the look down perfectly. This is not the answer he’s looking for. Also, he doesn’t believe me.
#5: Nobody?
Me: Yeah, no one knows. I mean there are all these scientific papers and stuff, but for every one that says it’s the egg, another one says it’s the chicken. So no one knows. For real.
I go back to putting on mascara.
#5: You know, when you open your mouth and mash your chin into your neck like that you look weird.
(runs out of bathroom)
He’s right, of course. I do look weird.
(runs back in bathroom)
#5: Well, which one do you think it was?
Me: Mmm. I think maybe it was the chicken.
#5: I think it was the egg.
(runs out of bathroom)
Of course he thinks it’s opposite of whatever I think.
(runs back in bathroom)
#5: It was the chicken.
Me: Yeah?
#5: Definitely the chicken.
Me: You mean I was right?
#5: No. I mean it had to be the chicken because how could an egg just randomly come to earth?
I picture a spaceship, piloted by a solo egg. He won’t admit he’s agreeing with me, so I switch tactics, because I can be stubborn too.
Me: Well, what do they teach you in Sunday school? That God is all-powerful, right?
Solely by the kindness of some of our excellent friends, the kids go to Sunday School pretty much every week.
Me: If he can make a chicken, surely he could make a self-hatching egg one time, right?
#5: {silence}
I’m totally not playing fair. He has no problem contradicting me, but stops short of contradicting God. It’s the entire reason I played the God card.
Me: He made Adam, right? So an egg is like, no big deal.
#5: Who’s Adam?
Me: Seriously?
#3, passing by: Wait, what did he ask?
Me: Who’s Adam.
#3: Isn’t it, like, Adam and Eve or something?
Me: {sigh} Yes. Yes it is.
#5: It was the chicken.
(runs out of bathroom)
JM Randolph, accidentalstepmom 
Adam was fine eating chicken sammiches until that apple pie came along. Hmmm. That means Garden of Eden was in America, right?
Ha! Jackson County, Missouri, baby!
🙂 OMG – that was funny. I could picture the whole scene i my head. Leave it to kids to ask the most interesting questions… even if it is an age old one.
Love this post.
By the way… I say chicken! Though, the spaceship piloted by a solitary egg is possible.
It’s an image forever now burned in my brain.
What a great conversation! Nice touch with the self-hatching egg, BTW!
Just think if all eggs were self-hatching.
I hope he never sees a re-run of Mork & Mindy. Watching Mork hatch from a giant egg without benefit of a hen might blow his mind. PS: the pteradactyl came first. Begat chicken egg. Mutants, all.
Hmm, perhaps a day of Mork & Mindy and Land of the Lost.
I spent the other night exlaining the earth travels around the sun and the moon travels around the earth. I don’t think they teach much science in Nigerian schools! 😦
I’d be grateful for the chicken and the egg question! It would be easier!
Yeah, when you get into more philosophy based questions it’s easier to make stuff up.
It’s the chicken. Definitely the chicken. Eve told me. (I mean the Eve I work with. Who are you talking about?)
Ha! I’m sure he has no idea who Eve is.
I’m grateful for Li’l D’s budding language faculties, but there are moments I think I could be more grateful. I wonder when I’ll get this sort of question from him . . . !
When you’re least prepared for it!
If you’re teaching him about one religion, he should learn about other likely ones too, like Pastafarianism. To a Pastafarian, there are no chickens or eggs, just meatballs.
http://www.venganza.org/
I can’t even fathom the questions I would get if I introduced this.
It sounds like your kids are going to the wrong Sunday school. Who is Adam? Wait, maybe they just missed the first day. 🙂 I love kids and their questions. I got, “Mom, how did you have me?” on the way to school the other day from the 6yo. My answer,” I went to the hospital and the doctors took you out of my tummy.” Miraculously, that satisfied him. Whew.
I’m sure #5 was probably talking when they went over that part. He usually is. Hey, look at that- you got off easy for once!
Oh, heck, throw some deoxyribonucleic acid on this whole party and start talking about the double helix. Twist that little brain around in circles. And then fix him a bacon and peanut butter sammich.
I wish he liked peanut butter. It’s much harder to talk with your mouth full of PB.
Life just keeps throwing blogging material at you, doesn’t it?
Great work.