What happened

There are many times when I am trying to teach Julia something and I cannot explain what kind of answer I am expecting. Such are my attempts to define words like how and why and what happened. I am looking for the behaviors leading to some event, the process used to get from point A to point B, or the rationale for doing some behavior. Many times I get answers like I wet, I hurt, I sorry. Sometimes I get crazy answers like brown, and I know that Julia is trying with all her might to satisfy me.

So yesterday, I did something . . . rather odd in my book.

Julia and I were at the table after school. I was setting up some work for her and she was eating her snack -- a bowl of noodles and a cup of hot chocolate. Julia loves to drink hot chocolate with a spoon but it really does take two hands to secure the cup and quickly move the spoon from cup to mouth. She also likes to pull her shirt up to her nose and sniff. And so, she had one hand on her shirt and the other on her spoon. The inevitable happened and the milk -- a good deal of her cup -- spilled over with milk on the table, her sweater and pants, the chair and the floor. Latkah took care of the floor immediately. I saw no reason to jump up to clean up because nothing was going to be ruined by waiting. I asked her what happened and she could not tell me. She told me that the milk was on the table, on the floor, and wetting her clothes. She could tell me that she wanted to change. But she could not answer how it happened or what happened to spill the milk. I did not want her to get up until she told me and that itself kept her attention. She does not like being wet like that. We went back and forth for what seemed like a long time, when, pretty much in frustration, I picked up the cup and intentionally spilled a bit of the chocolate milk on Julia's sweater, asked myself the question of what happened, and then answered it. I did this at least three times and each time Julia was shocked that I spilled milk on her clothes, but finally she was able to tell me that the spoon knocked over the cup of hot chocolate.

I then very quickly praised her, took off her clothes -- and she was soaked to the skin, sent her upstairs to change into cozy clothes, and cleaned up the mess that Latkah couldn't reach. When Julia came downstairs, as I asked her if she now understood that "What happened" or "How did it happen" question. And she said, I don't think so.

So.

Well, it was a try.