Defeated by three letters....

W-H-Y.  The little word has hit our family hard lately.  Of course Sean asked "why" a lot before, but ever since he turned 3 it takes up at least half of his vocabulary, and I can't keep up.  I frequently find my answers getting back to the origin of the food we're eating ("the farm"), or just back to "because that's how God made it."  I mean, several times a day we get back to Genesis. 

Yesterday on a ten minute drive home from church I fielded the following questions (not including the tangential "why's" that follow up any given answer):

"Mommy, why does a sled gliiiiide through the snow?" (mind you, it is 100 degrees here in charleston currently)
"Mommy, why do we only swish water in our mouths?"
"What does water do?"
"Mommy, why do lizards sometimes fall off of very high ladders?"
"Why don't you know?"

Two days ago we visted our new Trader Joes grocery store (yessss!), and as I zoned out looking at all the different frozen fish options, I absent mindedly was answering sean's questions.  I am pretty sure I scandalized a number of the crunchier customers who overheard our conversation:

"Mommy, can we get that sea turtle" (TJ's has a stuffed sea-turtle hidden somewhere in the store)
Ok, sure.
"Mommy, can we bring that sea turtle home?"
Maybe one day we can do that.
"Can we bring that sea turtle home for dinner?"
Sure, we can try that some day.
"Can we eat a sea turtle for dinner?"
Yeah, sure we can try that.  WAIT!  what?  no, we can't do that! 
Why can't we eat a sea turtle for dinner?

The other day Sean fell asleep for his nap while we were on my dad's boat.  Upon waking in a confused stupor, he immediately picked up where he left off, in rapid fire succession:

"Why don't we eat starfish?"
"Can we eat a crab?"
"How does a crab walk?"
"why does a crab walk with his legs?"
"How does a starfish walk?"
"Why are you 'llergic to crab?"
"Is I 'llergic to crab?"

Sometimes I just feel defeated by the questions, especially WHY.  Sometimes sean almost seems tired of it too, like he's tired of not knowing so much in the world.  As he progresses through the layers of a string of "why's" he gets this voice where he takes a big sigh, then asks in a tired monotone, "w..h...y....?"  Like, how long am I going to have to ask "why?" until I know all the answers.  Its a daunting thing growing up and realizing just how much you don't know.