Backseat Conversation, Revisited

My darling boy. Sweet, sweet boy.  Apparently he wants to be a Peter Pan who never grows up.  Of course, people who know my son also know that he has own sort of logic; he knows that it is impossible to never truly become Peter Pan.  He just wants to be Peter Pan-ish.  


Today, in the backseat, he tried to develop this never-grow-up plan.  It clearly has flaws, and he knows this.  He stated today, quite firmly, that he wanted to live forever.  But he wanted to live forever as a kid.  I pointed out to him that if that happened then he wouldn't be able to find a best girl and be married. Of course, he asked why.  I had to break the news to him that most wives want their husbands to be "grown-ups" -- if they weren't grown-ups this usually causes a great deal of contention in a marriage.  He said, "That's alright, I'll find a girl like me who lives forever as a kid, and then our kids will live forever."  


Oh. Well. He continued playing with his Lego (not Legos as I have been informed by somebody) and then he paused.  "But Mama, if that happens then I would be a kid and nobody would be around to take care of me. You and Daddy would be dead!" My son was genuinely sad about this.  The thought of being left alone, as a child, really spooked him out.  To be honest, it spooked me out, too.  I don't even like sending him to public restrooms alone.


He was quiet for a while.  I thought he had dropped the subject and when I looked in the mirror to peek at him in his secret backseat world, he was busy at work constructing something.  Finally, after some silence, my little boy said to me, "People really aren't supposed to live forever Mama, old or little. It's not natural."


"No, it's not natural."


"Plants die. Flowers die. Trees. Well, except for evergreens, but they go to sleep, so that's almost like dying. Animals. Seasons sort of like die when they change. Everything dies.  People have to age and die, too."


"You're absolutely right. This is how the world works. Even stars die. It's the natural order of things."  He went back to work on his Lego (not Legos).  I'm so blessed to have a child who always seems to be so wise beyond his age.  Even if he sometimes has to remind me he is only nine years old.  Luckily for me, Ethan quickly discarded his hopes and dreams of being a child forever.  


I'm quite fortunate, too, seeing as he has a fool-proof plan of becoming one.  When I asked him how he would do so he said, "Oh Mama, that's easy, I'll just drink nothing but Diet Coke from now on."