"Then I'd be hooked." "What's—?" "Like stuck on a hook, because I'd need [painkillers] all the time." (1.86-1.88)
Ma has to explain almost everything to Jack. He's only five. She has a great ability to explain the idioms that people use all the time without thinking. And she has incredible patience since she's able to define all of these things for her son so many times a day.
"I wouldn't lie to you about this," Ma says while I'm slurping the juice. "I couldn't tell you before, because you were too small to understand, so I guess I was sort of lying to you then. But now you're five, I think you can understand." (2.533)
Ma knows that Jack is much wiser than your average five-year-old. His curiosity and passion for knowledge make it easier for him to understand complicated concepts. Ma is confident he'll eventually get them, which is why she shares so much with him, without sugarcoating things, as he gets older.
Quote 21
"Vast," says Ma. "Gigantic." "Massive." "Huge." "Enormous," says Ma. "Hugeormous." That's word sandwich when we squish two together. (1.124-1.129)
Ma and Jack like to play vocabulary games. It may seem like a childish thing to do, but it actually relies on great vocabulary skills. It shows that Jack knows a bunch of synonyms, and also that he understands that "huge" and "enormous" can be combined into one even bigger word.