Jayce Questions

Last week Hannah was wearing some Halloween pjs with glow-in-the-dark bones printed on them. They sparked the following conversation with Jayce.

Jayce: Mom, what are these?

Me: Those are bones.

What are bones?

Um, they are hard things that are under your skin. Whenever you feel your skin and they're something hard under there, that's your bones.

I then showed him his elbow, his knees, his wrists, etc. I was feeling a little proud of myself for coming up with a short explanation that he seemed to get.

Jayce: Oh. My finger nails are hard, they're bones.

Me: No, those are your nails. Your bones are under your skin, your nails aren't under your skin.

This cup is a bone, it's hard.

Well, no, that's plastic. And it's not under your skin either.

At this point I start looking around the room for something to distract him so that I wouldn't have to answer if every single thing in the room was a bone. So much for that great explanation.

He also asked me what "start" was, though he knows what it means. I dare you to come up with a definition that makes sense to a 3 year old, but doesn't use the word start in it. It's difficult. Eventually I said, "Jayce, you know what start means." and we moved on, because he did know. Stinker.