Monday, June 15, 2009

The Question

Hehehe…

My sister has a fun conversation to look forward to.

She was visiting this weekend along with our parents and her daughter, Little E, who will be eight years old in August and just finished second grade.

Little E is freaking adorable. She’s quite a good little gymnast (won 3rd Place in the All-Around at Nationals last week) is an avid reader (finished the “chapter book” she brought with her to my place so I gave her my copy of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” and she’s burning through it!) and she’s hella curious about EVERYTHING.

We went to the “Real Pirates” exhibit at the Field Museum which tracks the history of a ship that started as a slaving vessel, became a pirate ship, sank, and was recovered despite the fact that it was buried beneath 30 feet of sand.

Little E was quite somber and serious as she viewed the shackles and branding needles and saw the schematics of how people were shoved into the cargo hold of this ship.

“But WHY?” she asked, her little forehead furrowed into a frown.
“People will do horrible things for money,” we told her.

She’s beginning to ask ever-harder questions now and she had a doozy for my sister the other night.

We had just finished watching “Bride Wars” which wasn’t as dismal as I’d thought it would be and she started to ask Jo about when “you and Daddy got married”

Uh oh.

Jo never married the Waste of Space. It was the one smart thing she ever did in regards to him. The kids know that their Mommy and Daddy don’t live together – they haven’t since E-man was less than a year old.

Jo, not one to lie to her spawn, told her: “Your Daddy and I were never married.”
Little E: (indignant) Yeah you were!
Jo: No.
Little E: (frowning in 7yo consternation) But… But then how were we born?
Jo looked at us helplessly and I couldn’t prevent a smug little smile.

She managed to deflect The Question with some strategically offered ice cream, but she won’t be able to deflect it. That’s the way it is with kids and their questions. They don’t go away.

3 comments:

CeeKay1 said...

I know, right? Nita's obsessed with, "How do you get the baby out?" I keep telling her that the doctor helps me get it out when it's time, but she's not satisfied with that. That gets followed up with, "But how, Mommy? How does the doctor get it out?" Argh.

I feel Jo's pain. :-p

EEE said...

Tell her: It's MAGIC!

And then hand her an ice cream cone.

Jay_Lee said...

I feel Jo's pain now even though H is a year younger then E.

She asks me about when Vader and I were together. I end up telling her the same thing, that we weren't married (thank god I turned him down). It's slightly easier since he got married about a year and a half ago, but wow the questions just get harder.