“UH!…Stop. UH!….Mama, why do these keep falling!”

I looked up from the sudsy sink and over at Ava who was holding out her hand and dropping crayon after crayon on the kitchen floor.

“What’s the matter, Ava?” I replied.

Ava picked up a orange crayon, gripped it in her fist, held it over the floor with her palm down and opened her fingers. Surprisingly a flash of pumpkin plummeted through the air to add its hue to the free form art on the tile.

“Why do these keep falling?” she asked.

“Because you are dropping them.” Sometimes you just have to state the obvious.

“But WHY do they FALL?” she asked again as she added yet another color to her collage.

“Do you mean, why do the crayons leave your hand when you open your fingers?”

“Yes,” she replied shifting her gaze from her art to her mother, whom she believed to have the answer to the question that had been torturing her for almost three minutes.

I stared right back at her. I mean really how do you explain the laws of gravity to someone who still believes that contents of her nose are a nutritious (and delicious) afternoon snack, and that badgers live behind the couch in our living room. Have I mentioned that the badgers had babies? They have. Four of the them. Thankfully, badger babies are of the kissing variety, so they don’t pose any present threat.

And frankly, I remember being absolutely stunned in fourth grade with this new knowledge of Newton, his apple, and his great laws. The simplistic, brilliance of it all was so exciting. Before that afternoon in Mr. Corson’s science class, I had never considered why when I set something down it stayed or when I dropped something it fell. I was feeling completely unqualified to answer this question and still baffled by the fact that she was asking it when I was interrupted the impatient inquisitor.

“Why, Mama? Why do the crayons fall?”

“Gravity, Ava. Gravity makes them fall.” Again, the obvious. It’s really all I have.

“What’s Grabeny? Who is she?”

“GraVity isn’t a person. It’s something God created to make things stay in the right places.”

“But who is she? Why is she putting my crayons on the floor? I don’t want her to be put my crayons on the floor!”

I attempted to reassure her that gravity was not some mischievous person out to spoil her art, but something good that God made. I told her that if we didn’t have gravity everything would float away. She cocked her head to the left and lowered her lashes. She didn’t believe me. My three-year-old doesn’t believe me. Like her daddy, she apparently needs facts.

Not to be outdone by my daughter, I whipped out my clip-on tie, donned the charisma of HappyFunTime and hopped up on my chair to begin the pantomiming frenzy of Snack Time without Gravity:

If she wanted the grapes on the table, she would reach for them but the grapes would float out of the bowl and then the bowl would float away. As she would keep trying to reach the grapes, she would be floating this way and they would be floating that way. And after all the work, she would be thirsty. So she would reach for her pomegranate juice, but the cup would go this way and the juice would float out of the cup going that way. And then the table would float and the chairs would float and mama would float away. She might not even be able to get to Mama for a hug! God is so good that He made gravity to keep the grapes in the bowl and the juice in the cup, and so she could give Mama a hug.

“And that, Ava is gravity,” I said as I took my final bow.

Of course the laws of gravity were in full force during my robust one-woman-show, so all of my props were now strewn on the floor. Ava’s eyes widened as she surveyed the scattered grapes, overturned bowls, puddles of pomegranate juice and of course me grasping for any bit of oxygen that hadn’t floated away. A little giggle escaped as she clapped.

“Do it again, Mama. Do gravity again!”