Hello, my name is Novice

Even since Pioneer Day, Princess has been very interested in pioneer children. She wants to know what they did "while they walked and walked and walked," she says. I unfortunately don't know a lot about pioneer children. I have made clear they walked because they didn't have cars and they walked a long long way. I try to expound on the song she knows-- they fished at streams and worked and played, Sundays they camped and read and played. I have told her these things so much that she always wants to know what ELSE they did. Well, one time I made the mistake of telling her that they collected buffalo poop to use in their fires, which, by the way, I do know for a fact, unlike other stuff which I have sort of had to extrapolate, should I say. She has never forgotten this fact, probably because she finds it so funny. She always laughs when she mentions it and it has prompted so many more unfortunate poop questions that have even more unfortunate answers: "Why did they PICK UP buffalo poop?" and after I tell her that it was good for helping fires grow "Why did it burn really good?" At some point I just have to say I don't know because, really, I have no idea what I'm talking about. I regret to say that we had yet another buffalo poop conversation tonight, at, where else, the dinner table. It has once again struck me that you don't earn a license to be a parent. You can leave the hospital doors and they don't check to see if you have credentials to take this squirmy little bundled up thing home and teach her everything she needs to know. And nobody warns you about the buffalo poop conversations! I can only guess that these "why" questions get worse with time. I dread the day after we bring Baby Brother home and Princess realizes boys are different from girls. This WILL happen eventually, and will prompt discussions that I as the novice parent will look forward to less than the buffalo poop conversations. The only thing I have going for me is that I know more about boys than I do about buffaloes.