I'll Love You Forever

The kids got out of school early today (report card prep for the teachers) and while Em went to play at a friend's house, N and I went to the library to see if we could find more of Tedd Arnold's Fly Guy books to read. (Any book that makes N say, "Let's get more of these!" gets an immediate response in my house. But we always try the library first. Because...Well, if you don't know why, you obviously didn't read about how I buy Chanukah presents at Goodwill.)

On the way back, we passed a construction site. "When I get to be a grownup, I'm going to work there," N said, pointing. "And then I'll come home at night and sleep in our house still, of course. Except Daddy will have to teach me to drive a car. Or a truck, maybe."

"So you're going to be a construction worker now?" I asked. "What happened to being a fireman?"

"Well, I might have a lot of jobs," he replied. "Like...Well, I don't want to be a soldier, because I don't want to die, but I might be a policeman, a fireman, an ambulance...Wait. Do policemen die?"

"Well, yes, sometimes," I admitted. "And sometimes firemen do, too. Those are all very important jobs, but sometimes they can be dangerous."

"Well, if I was made of metal I wouldn't die," he countered.

"Sure, but if you were made of metal, you'd be a robot and you wouldn't be a human. So you couldn't die, because you wouldn't be alive."

He pondered this for a minute, then moved on. "Where do policemen live?"

"They live in houses with their families, like everyone else," I said. "They go to the police station to do their job, then they come home."

"Good," he answered. "Because I still want to live with you and Daddy and sleep in my favorite bed with Snuggy as my guard." [Note: We really need to work on his pronounciation of 'guard,' because right now it comes out as 'god,' and it always takes me aback to hear him proclaim, when Snug settles down on the foot of his bed as he does every night, "Oh, good. There's Snuggy, my god."]

"Don't you want to live somewhere else when you grow up?"

"No way! Except..." and here he hesitates for a second, "well, one day I might see a girl I like and marry her."

"Right. And then what will you do?"

"It'll be OK, though. I'll just talk to her about it a lot and then we'll both live with you guys."

"In your same bed? With the Spongebob sheets?"

"In my favorite bed. With my favorite Spongebob sheets. And Snuggy as our god."

It's good to have a plan.

[Note number 1: I swear to Snuggy that this is an almost word-for-word transcript of what transpired. Check out those language skills. Note how the entire thing makes almost perfect sense. It would be almost freaky if it weren't so wonderful.]

[Note number 2: I swear to Snuggy as well that I have NO idea where he got the "I don't want to be a soldier because I don't want to die," thing. You'd think it would be obvious (here everyone looks meaningfully over at Baroy), but that is actually so NOT the kind of thing that ever gets discussed in this house, or at least not with the kids directly. So I haven't a clue, not really.]