Cute Curious Critters

"what's this?"
"what are you doing?"
"where is it?"
"but, why?"

children feed on their curiosity like my hunger for a nice juicy kentucky fried chicken. they ask. and they're not satisfied until we give them an answer. "mak! mak! mak!" they want an answer. they demand an answer. any answer.

i love bill watterson's calvin and hobbes - and calvin is one of the best, most funniest example of a super-curious kid. but it gets funnier to have a dad like calvin's who give him really outrageous answers to his questions!

Q. How come old photographs are always black and white? Didn't they have color film back then?
A. Sure they did. In fact, those old photographs are in color. It's just that the world was black and white then. The world didn't turn color until sometime in the 1930s, and it was pretty grainy color for a while, too.
Q. But then why are old paintings in color?! If the world was black and white, wouldn't artists have painted it that way?
A. Not necessarily. A lot of great artists were insane.
Q. But... But how could they have painted in color anyway? Wouldn't their paints have been shades of gray back then?
A. Of course, but they turned colors like everything else did in the '30s.
Q. So why didn't old black and white photos turn color too?
A. Because they were color pictures of black and white, remember?

nak dengar cakap mak ke bapak?

one day we're at a traffic light, it turned red and we're stopping. and khaleef said, "red - stop." and i said, correct. then he asked, "mak, green? green?" and i said, wait. because i want to wait until the light turned green. when it did, i said, "green means go." after which khaleef repeated it, "green - go."

then it was my turn to ask - "khaleef, what about yellow? yellow?" khaleef did his usual adorable pointy-finger-on-the-chin-while-lookin-up-while-sayin 'hmmmm' pose. he's thinking, you see. then he said, "yellow - go!" after which his bapak quickly agreed. "yes, yellow - go very fast!"

"no, yellow means slowwwwwwly. go slowly." i corrected him. then khaleef paused. looked at his bapak, and then looked at me, then to his bapak again. he slowly said, "yellow........ GO!"

aghh!

the important thing is not to stop questioning. curiosity has its own reason for existing. one cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. it is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. i have no special talents. i am only passionately curious!

~albert einstein

kahfi is in a curiousity-phase right now where he gets excited even when seeing my wriggling toes. since he's slowly perfecting his mobility, he explores even further than just the edge of his mat. now he just doesn't move backwards, he can move forward too, like a little wriggly worm!

currently this is kahfi in his most lepakness. he tends to rest his chin on his palm while lying flat on the mat, usually while looking at his abang or when he's just lost in his own thoughts... it really is an amusing sight whenever he tongkat dagu like a thinking grown-up with probs up his brain!

i keep six honest serving-men,
they taught me all i knew;
their names are What and Why and When
and How and Where and Who.

~rudyard kipling

last time khaleef used to barge into the kitchen asking, "mak, what are you doing?" and i will answer, "mak cooking.", "mak baking.", "mak washing plates.", "mak chopping." but now when he comes in with the same question, i asked him back - "khaleef look. what is mak doing?" then he will do the 'errmmm' thing again, and said, "mak cooking."

good boy. dah pegi nyanyi kat kahfi mak nak masak!

sometimes we forget that children have just arrived on the earth. they are a little like aliens, coming into beings as bundles of energy and pure potential, here on some exploratory mission and they are just trying to learn what it means to be human.

~ from the movie 'martian child'

mommies and daddys - if you're not sure of the answer, just say, "hmm. that's a good question." *smile*