Kid Amnesiac

Tonight in the car, Simon began talking about scary thoughts again. The fear du jour was cancer, which he apparently knows about in reference to George Harrison. He then consoled himself with the notion that every day many, many babies are born. This spurred a long, meandering, and hilarious conversation, which does not require any further commentary from me. Hit it:

“Every day 4,000 babies are born.” [I need to clarify this stat; seems too low to be world-wide in a full day, but Simon was adamant.]

“Wow, that’s a lot of cute babies. There’s something to think about to make you smile when you have scary thoughts in your brain.”

“I wish we had a baby like Anyieth, but you’re too old now.”

“I am. But you know who’s going to have a baby that we can babysit for? Leah’s mommy, Ms. Sharon.”

“You mean Leah is going to be a big sister?”

“She sure is.”

“Why didn’t Uncle Dan have a baby? Is it because he isn’t married.”

“Yes, that’s why. But you never know.” [You hear that, Uncle Dan? We’re not counting you out just yet.]

“Well why didn’t he get married?”

“I don’t know honey. Some people aren’t married because they haven’t met the right person, and others don’t want to get married. Not everyone wants to get married you know.”

“Well I do. I’m going to get married when I’m a grown-up.”

“Are you the marrying kind, then?”

“Yeah. Maybe even to Caroline.”

“You think? Not to any of your other girlfriends like Ruby or Gabrielle?”

“No, to Caroline.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t know. But one day on the playground I heard the girls talking about marrying me.”

[laughter] “You did? How did that make you feel.”

“Oh, mama, weird. I did NOT need to be hearing that! And if I heard that again, I’d have to get out of there. I’d have to, like, go to Hawaii for six weeks or something and then come back.”

So there you have it. He’s going to get married, maybe even to Caroline. But he does NOT want to talk about it. So, an elopement?