Oh, good. F has cottoned on to the fact that mortality is a problem for us puny humans. Through various discussions about growing up and biology, she has absorbed the following information.
- Children slowly grow into adults, and usually stop growing before they are twenty years old
- Living things eventually die
- Death is, in general, a sad thing that people don't like
These three facts have combined into a superfact, much like a trio of tiny autobots becoming something much larger and ridiculous.
"When I'm nineteen, I will be so tall and big my head will reach the ceiling and then I'll die! That will make me sad, because I'll miss you, daddy."
It's been a few years since I revised my physiology, I know, but I'm usually more accurate a teacher than this. F can explain immunity to you, post-chicken pox, and was annoyed to learn it doesn't apply to the cold she's about to catch from C. She can, with a little help, write her name (although the letters are generally in whimsical positions and rotations about the page).
Although my first instincts were to dismantle the broad raft of inaccuracies on which her fallacy was floating, I found myself considering the deeper and sharkier sea of knowledge underneath it. I guess knowing the straight-up facts about death isn't exactly a high priority when you're three and a half. There's a reason Ladybird don't do 'Peter and Jane Do A Eulogy'. Instead, I reassured F that death was nothing to worry about and that she wasn't ever going to outgrow the roof, and she's not spoken about it since. Probably fine, then.
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C started daycare a couple of weeks ago. She'd been looking forward to it after the sneak previews she got when she helped me go and pick F up. She's a lot more outgoing than her older sister was at the same age. She's already running off without a backward glance, glad to be free of her oafish parents for a few hours, and importing all the local viruses back to the home for closer study. Last Saturday after breakfast, she stood at the front door hammering on it angrily and barking impatient reminders to us that it was time to go now.
I suppose this is positive? There's an acting job starting next week for me, and until it kicks off, I can actually sit at home by myself and get things done. That's a novelty, I can tell you. A lonely, echoing novelty that's lousy with guilt. After a few hours, I had to put Peppa Pig on and spill some milk somewhere in the house so I could clean it up and feel redeemed.
V and I actually had a day off together today, for about the first time since F was born, where we didn't have to book a babysitter to go out and relax a little. Floating semi-coherently round the spa, letting exhaustion flood out of me like sweat from a Trump campaign manager during a live broadcast, I couldn't help but feel I was shirking responsibility.
Tiny creatures on my shoulders, with the faces of my children, floated with me, mouthing "why, daddy? Why don't you like us any more?" as miniature tears sparkled down their cheeks. It countered the effects of the looped Enya album the spa was playing pretty acutely, I can tell you.
Could have just been the tiredness, mind you. A pulled pork lunch and some coffee down by the canal, and I perked right back up.
