Where does the water go?

At the end of bathtime the other night, R said, as she often does ‘Where does the water go?’ She used to be satisfied with ‘Down the plughole’, but more recently she needs more information, ‘Down the plughole, then through the pipes and down through the drain pipes outside and into underground pipes that go along under the road, and eventually go into the sea. I think. I’ll have to check.’

And suddenly I realised I was going to have to brush up on a lot of things that I haven’t really thought about for a while, so that I can answer her questions as accurately as possible. I missed out the water treatment plant, by the way. And, of course, she now needs to know where the water comes from, so I had to brush up on evaporation and precipitation. Quite often I ask resort to ‘We’ll have to check with Daddy. I think he might know that one.’ or ‘I think … but I’ll check on the Internet after you’ve gone to sleep.’ I need to get better at remembering to look it up.

Do your children ask questions you can’t answer? What do you say? Do you know of any websites with lots of simple answers to the sorts of questions children ask? (I found the water answers on one of the water companies’ websites.)

Photo credit: Vertigogen