and, what if?

I know all of you with kids have had this happen to you - the fixation on a certain subject, or specific terminology. Lately around here it's been 'what if?'. I don't know when it started, maybe a week or two ago, but it's driving me nuts. And it can be about any subject. Oh, yeah, there's also 'and'. I'll talk about that one later on down this post. For example, I've heard the following 'what if's?' just in the past few days.

What if you hit that guy in front of you and he ran off the road and bounced off that tree and then came back around behind you? (heard while driving to school in the morning)

What if you walk in and they say 'blah blah, okay bye'? (heard when trying to answer the question of how long my interview was going to last)

What if they let us collect onehundredgazillionbillion seeds to feed the birds? (heard while playing one of the games on his Leapster)

What if I were a giant and my teacher was in outerspace and I came over and picked up the world and ate it... the whole world? (heard on the drive home from dinner the other night)

And these are just the recent 'what if's?'. There's that 'and' again. Seriously, I could fill a notebook with all the 'what if's?' I've heard in the past few weeks. When this first started, I actually tried to answer the questions. Now I'm at the point of asking 'WTF?'. So that's what I told him. Well, not really. What I said was, "The next time, and every time after, you ask me 'what if whatever' I am going to answer you with 'what if?'". I'm sure you can imagine where that's gotten me. {sigh} I can only hope this phase will pass soon. I don't care 'what if?'.

So the 'and' thing. Apparently they've learned at school that it's not correct to start a sentence using the word 'and'. I'm guilty of doing this here on my blog more than I care to admit. Whatever. It's my blog and I'll write it any way I feel like even if it isn't grammatically correct. Sometimes I really hate school. But my writing isn't the point. And yes, I know starting a sentence with 'but' isnt grammatically correct either. Sue me. The point is he was reading to me and whatever book it was started a sentence with 'and'. "You're not supposed to use 'and' to start a sentence," I was told. "Yes, I know" I responded. "Then why are they doing it?" he asked. Which could have started a whole discussion on why writers take liberties in their writing, and how even though there are rules of grammer sometimes they aren't followed, leading to sometimes rules in general aren't followed and it's not always neccessarily bad to not follow all the rules all of the time. Well, you get the point. Instead, my response was "I don't know. Why don't you ask your teacher?" Hehe.

On that note, since I know you've been missing me posting the Joke of the Day, I leave you with this.

Pearl: Rachel is a terrific housekeeper.
Shirl: Why do you say that?
Pearl: Because she's been divorced three times and has kept all three houses.